Raiders suffer deflating loss in home opener to Panthers

Burned by a quarterback change made earlier this week, Las Vegas fell flat in its home opener from inside Allegiant Stadium.

Finally playing in front of its home fans in Week 3 of the NFL season, the Raiders were beaten by the Carolina Panthers, 36-22. The loss comes a week after the team stunned the Baltimore Ravens on the road.

“Poor — just not good enough,” head coach Antonio Pierce said. “The crowd was ready, I appreciate the crowd showing up — they did their part, we did not.”

With two losses through the first three games of the season, Las Vegas will stay in town for its second straight home game. That contest will be played against Cleveland Sunday, Sept. 29 from Allegiant Stadium.

“We’ve got to work at it,” Pierce said. “It’s a long season, it’s Week 3. We’ll go into the lab and we really got to chip away more.”

Prior to Sunday’s meeting, the Raiders hadn’t given up a first half touchdown through the first two weeks of the season. Quarterback Andy Dalton not only threw for a touchdown in the first half, he threw for three in his first start since Week 3 of last season.

Dalton was named the Carolina starting quarterback following the decision by first-year head coach Dan Canales and company to bench last year’s No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young.

It was a fast start for the 36-year old who went five for his first six pass attempts for 52 yards and a touchdown. His six-yard score through the air to running back Chubba Hubbard on the first drive of the game accounted for the first touchdown of the first half given up by the Las Vegas defense this season.

“I think there’s definitely some individuals that made business decisions,” Pierce said. “And we’ll make business decisions going forward as well.”

Dalton threw for three touchdowns on the night, all of which came in the first half. He’d finish with 319 yards on 26-for-37 passing to go along with his 29th three-touchdown game of his career.

About half of his performance came with receiver Adam Thielen on the sidelines as he suffered a hamstring injury late in the first half.

“We played a lot of man in this game,” Pierce said. “You’ve got to give credit to them, they came out here and put their best foot forward and we didn’t.”

Through the first two weeks of the season, Las Vegas had success on getting opposing offenses off the field on third downs. Dalton and Carolina very rarely ran into difficulty in third down situations through the first half converting on five of their eight attempts.

At one point, the five and a half point underdog Panthers were up by 26 points.

“We got our ass whooped,” Pierce said. “We got our ass whooped. We’ve got to put pads on, got to get on the sled — same group for the most part will all come back [with] the same technique and same coaches.”

The Raiders’ quarterback play didn’t match the level of Dalton’s with the team having very little success at the line of scrimmage. Attempts to run the football fell to the wasteside after the group ultimately tallied 55 yards on 16 carries.

“What we thought was going to work didn’t work,” Pierce said. “On the grass we didn’t execute nor did we put forth the effort, to me, that we had put up in games past.”

Though sporadic, Minshew did produce some magic in certain moments. The first spark came when he found receiver Tre Tucker for 54 yards down the middle of the field.

That deep pass play set up a two-yard rushing touchdown by first-year Las Vegas running back Alexander Mattison. He has now scored in each of the team’s first three games this season.

“Didn’t see that coming on either side of the ball,” Pierce said. “We thought we could run the ball and we didn’t at all. We tried and tried and tried — I would’ve boo’d us too.”

Receiver Davante Adams didn’t record his first touch until about five minutes into the second quarter. He was held to four catches for 40 yards on nine targets as he battled through some aggressive secondary play from Carolina.

“If you can’t win on the early downs, teams are just going to keep teeing off on us,” Pierce said. “And have their full arsenal of third down menus and that’s really what you’re seeing. So until we can be better running the ball — well just be more productive, get some positive plays on first and second downs, it’s not going to be good.”

Minshew threw another touchdown on the day to receiver Jakobi Meyers on the team’s first possession of the fourth quarter. He finished with 214 yards through the air with a 64% completion mark.

The lone mistake of the game came in the form of a fourth quarter interception from Minshew. That would serve to be his final drive under center as second-year quarterback Aidan O’Connell closed the game for Las Vegas.

“The game was kind of out of hand,” Pierce said. “Had to quarterbacks that battled so let’s see what the third guy can go out there and do a little bit.”

O’Connell engineered a touchdown drive in his limited action, finding the aforementioned Tucker for an eight-yard score with just under a minute left in regulation. In his lone drive, the Purdue product went 9-for-12, for 82 yards and a touchdown.