The Las Vegas Raiders suffered an embarrassing loss to the Carolina Panthers in their home opener on Sunday.
The Raiders did not play well on either side of the ball. The Raiders’ normally reliable defense looked confused from the first drive of the game, and the Raiders’ offense looked the same as it has in almost all three games this season, with the exception of the fourth quarter against the Baltimore Ravens.
Raiders coach Antonio Pierce made it clear he was disappointed in everyone on the team. Pierce noted that the offense once again couldn’t pass or run well and that the unit not only didn’t play well, but didn’t play well for long stretches.
“It looked like everything,” Pierce said after the loss. “It started with the running game, the passing game wasn’t there,” Pierce said. “I mean, look, obviously you’re watching, your eyes are going in different directions, but. We had a chance, I mean, there were some things we wanted to do that showed up, it was just there, you don’t see it until the next 10 or 12 minutes or the next quarter or even not at all, so just not a good performance from us today.”
While the Raiders offense has plenty of room to improve, Pierce cited penalties and the team’s lack of success on early attempts as two main areas where improvement is needed. Pierce also pointed to the numerous long third-down conversions the Raiders had to attempt throughout the game as part of the problem.
“Just penalties and first-and-10. The next attempt is probably second-and-8 or second-and-9 most of the time,” Pierce said. “If you can’t win on the first few attempts, teams are just going to keep going at us and use their full arsenal of third-down opportunities, and that’s really what you see. So until we can do better, we’re either going to have to run the ball or be more productive and get some positive plays on first and second downs. It’s not going to be good, but we’ve got to work on it. It’s a long season and it’s week three. We’re going to go to the lab and work really hard.”
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