Sin City Raiders

Wow! What a week Raider Nation.

Technically, it wasn’t even a week, but four days. Coming off a 3-0 loss on Sunday afternoon, the Raiders came out on Thursday night and ran up the score on their longtime division rival with a 63-21 victory and I’m not sure the score does it justice. To put the game into better perspective, the Raiders starting defense scored more touchdowns than the Chargers offense prior to late garbage time scores by Los Angeles (although it is hard to define where garbage time began).

Although we are at the point of the season where fans may be more interested in draft positioning than winning games, I don’t think there is a Raider fan out there who didn’t thoroughly enjoy this game. The win was so lopsided in the Raiders favor that they forced Dean Spanos’ hand in firing head coach Brandon Staley and general manager Tom Telesco.

Say what you will about the Chargers’ injury report, but the Raiders were playing with a patched-together offensive line and without their star running back Josh Jacobs (even if he is having a down year). That patched-together line shut down game-wrecking edge defender Khalil Mack after he previously had a historic game of his own against the Raiders when he sacked Aidan O’Connell six times in their last matchup.

Speaking of O’Connell, he put up the best game of his young career against the defense that harassed him earlier this season. He found Davante Adams more frequently than he has so far and fellow receiver Tre Tucker showed what he can do.

Regardless of how the rest of the season plays out, the Raiders can look on this game as their brightest spot of the season, so pull out the victory-cigars Raider Nation and let’s enjoy this one.