.png)
Four days after trading away an All-Pro receiver, the Las Vegas Raiders offense went anemic as they suffered a familiar fate in another loss.
Las Vegas dropped its second game of the season from SoFi Stadium, this time to the Los Angeles Rams by a final of 20-15 Sunday, Oct. 20. The Raiders caught the 1-4 Rams coming off a bye week.
“Penalties and turnovers,” head coach Antonio Pierce said. “Starting to sound like a broken record.”
That’s a third straight loss for Las Vegas as it drops the team to 2-5 on the year. It has just one win in its four chances on the road so far in 2024.
The Raiders get to return home next but will be greeted by the undefeated reigning back-to-back Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs. That game is slated for Sunday, Oct. 27 with kickoff scheduled for 1:25 p.m.
“Ain’t no spark,” Pierce said. “Got to get back to work and it starts tomorrow. Get back here, watch this film — we know the Chiefs, they know us. Divisional foe at home, we’ve got to get ready to play. They’re not feeling bad for us.”
Las Vegas’ offense struggled greatly after having traded receiver Davante Adams away to the New York Jets in exchange for a conditional third round pick that could become a second.
Quarterback Aidan O’Connell made his third start of his second NFL season. He’d be lifted from the game by the conclusion of his second drive.
After being batted around, O’Connell would leave the field and head to the locker room with a team trainer favoring his right hand. He would later be ruled doubtful with a thumb injury but would never return.
”We’ll have to get back to Vegas and get some more reports from our medical staff,” Pierce said.
Backup Gardner Minshew came in and would help produce a drive that ended with a field goal on his first two possessions. His third one was ended by an interception that served as the game’s first turnover.
The Rams came down and scored the first touchdown of the game on the ensuing drive.
“We’ve got to take care of the ball,” Pierce said. “Three interceptions and a sack fumble. Football is the most important thing so you’ve got to take care of that.”
Minshew would fumble on the next drive and it would turn into a scoop-and-score. Those two turnovers turned a 3-0 lead into a 14-3 deficit in
Controlling the ball was a major issue in the loss with Minshew being picked off again two more times in the second half. Through six games played this season, he has eight interceptions versus four passing touchdowns.
Sunday, he went 15-for-34 for 154 yards with three interceptions and a fumble lost.
“That’s on me man,” Minshew said. “That’s unacceptable to have that many turnovers. I’ve got to be smarter with the ball. To have a game where we lose by five points and we have four turnovers, that’s critical and it’s unfair to the rest of the team.”
The offensive outing spoiled a relatively stellar defensive effort. Los Angeles was 259 total yards in just over 26 minutes with the ball while going 2-for-10 on third downs.
Additionally, Las Vegas forced six punts.
“You’ve just got to keep showing up and getting better individually and as a team,” defensive end Maxx Crosby said. “If I had the answers, I would gladly put it out there. It’s just attention to detail across the board.”
Crosby moved into third all-time in sacks for the Raiders with a first quarter takedown of quarterback Matthew Stafford. He picked up three tackles, a sack, tackle for loss, pass defended and a quarterback hit.
Defensive teammate Nate Hobbs added six tackles, a pass defended and an interception along the comeback route.
Comments