LAS VEGAS—Three weeks ago, the Las Vegas Raiders were on top of the world.
They had fired off three straight victories and were one of the few unbeaten teams remaining in the league, and a fanbase long starved for success could finally see the daylight at the end of the tunnel.
Then, the setbacks began. A nailbiter to the Kansas City Chiefs went against the Raiders on a crucial fourth-quarter sequence, followed by a dud on the road against the New England Patriots. Suddenly, the progress was being questioned and the Raiders were needing a chance to get right.
Unfortunately, it did not come on Sunday, as the Raiders fell to .500 in a 33-30 loss to the Buffalo Bills.
“Very disappointed that we didn’t get it done today,” lamented head coach Klint Kubiak in the postgame press conference.
“As a team, we did not close the game and there’s plenty of improvement, but we are not satisfied with any moral victories.”
What undid the Raiders was an outcome very similar to the Chiefs: moments showing their inexperience in mixing it up among the NFL’s elite.
With the support of a massive contingent of Bills Mafia that made the trek out west, Josh Allen and the playmakers Buffalo has in their arsenal were able to get things going down the field with regularity. Allen put up 255 yards and two touchdowns, including a spectacular play where he juked two Raiders defenders and heaved a shovel pass that found a wide-open Keon Coleman in the end zone.
Running back James Cook also made his impact with 153 all-purpose yards (95 rushing, 58 receiving), and his efforts lead to his touchdown that put the Bills in front for good.
While the Raiders kept pace for the most part, there were elements of their game where bad habits seeped in.
The lack of clean execution was most notable at the start of the third quarter, when Kirk Cousins threw three straight incompletions on the first drive to take only 35 seconds off the clock. The next drive, Cousins threw an inexplicable pass into double coverage that was picked off by Bills linebacker Dorian Williams, resulting in the game’s lone turnover and giving Buffalo a short field that resulted in a touchdown.
Other mistakes that plagued the Raiders were going 2-for-5 on their red zone opportunities, which lead to them settling for field goals when they needed touchdowns in the track meet-style game the Bills were daring them to play.
“One of those games where it’s hard to sleep afterwards when you kind of think through the plays that you could have or should have made and in the red zone plays when you leave points out there and you kick field goals in a tight game like that, it comes back to haunt you,” Cousins said as he candidly judged his performance.
It was also a difficult outing for the Raiders’ offensive stars. Ashton Jeanty averaged 2.2 yards per carry on 10 carries despite getting a touchdown on the team’s first drive.
In the passing game, Brock Bowers’s final stat line of four receptions for 70 yards appears fine on the surface, the star tight end did not record his first catch until within five minutes of the third quarter.
“Credit Buffalo. They did a great job of playing him. They had a good plan,” said Kubiak on the Bills’ ability to contain Bowers.
While the Raiders did get added contributions from Michael Mayer (seven catches for a career-high 95 yards) and Tre Tucker (five receptions for a team-high 97 yards and both touchdowns), it proved to be insurmountable to have players the Raiders are depending on for production struggling to get anything going consistently.
With a season that started out with so much promise going in the opposite direction, Kubiak now faces his first true test of his head coaching career in bringing a team through adversity.
If the first three weeks of the season presented a foundation that the Raiders can build off of, the previous three have showcased the problems that Kubiak and his staff are working to fix. This past week of practice, Kubiak has expressed that he is addressing the issues in “bite-sized” increments, focusing on one element at a time instead of clearing the whole big picture in one fell swoop. However, the head coach made one area of improvement perfectly clear, to the point where calling in the mantra of this upcoming week is not hyperbole.
“Close. Games. Out,” was all Kubiak had to say to at the end, indicating an intense week of practice rivaling the coach’s demeanor.
They will have the chance to do so when a desperate Los Angeles Rams team rolls into Allegiant Stadium next, as that game has now taken a new storyline of two teams trying to prevent their seasons from going off the rails.