The Raiders were ran off the field by the Minnesota Vikings Sunday afternoon, losing 34-14 in their first road game of the year.
They struggled on both sides of the ball, not being able to get anything going on offense and giving up huge plays in the run game on defense.
“We got to play better in all three areas, and it starts with me,” said head coach Jon Gruden.
Quarterback Derek Carr struggled to get anything going on offense, missing routine throws and struggling on third down. It also didn’t help that he took four sacks and had Vikings defenders in his face all game.
Carr finished the game with 242 yards and two touchdowns, most of it coming in garbage time.
The Raiders lost the battle up front on both sides of the ball yet again. The defensive line was manhandled all afternoon. They finished with zero sacks and let Vikings running back Dalvin Cook gash them on his way to 110 yards and a touchdown on nearly seven yards per carry.
Rookie running back Josh Jacobs never got a chance to get going on the ground as the Raiders were playing from behind most of the day. Jacobs carried the ball 10 times for 44 yards.
“We fell behind and most of the time you become limited,” said Gruden. “We were behind 28-7 before you know it, so it was tough to get anybody in a rhythm running the ball.”
One of the bright spots during Sundays game was tight-end Darren Waller. Waller finished with 13 receptions for 134 yards and has been a consistent target for Derek Carr all season.
This was the first game of a brutal five-game road trip for the Raiders. They don’t play their next home game until November 3, which is unheard of in the NFL.
They’ll be in Indianapolis next week to take on the Colts before traveling all the way to London to play the Bears. A bye in week six will be followed by back-to-back road games against the Packers and Texans. They return home in week 9 to play the Lions.
If your counting that’s 48 days in between road games and Jon Gruden didn’t sound to happy about it earlier in the week.
“It's uncommon, maybe unprecedented, maybe unrealistic that this should ever happen in pro football," Gruden said. "I'm not excited about it, but we'll adapt and do it the best we can. We are still trying to understand how that happened, but we are going to have to deal with it. We just have to showcase our mental toughness.”
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