Raiders Waste Golden Opportunity in Denver Meltdown

New Ways to Lose

Three offensive rookies made four critical mistakes tonight.  Penalties (Jack Beech, Dont’e Thornton) and dropped passes (Thornton, Ashton Jeanty) cost the Raiders essential points that could have won them this game.

Geno Smith addressed it, but kept it classy, defending his rookies.

“Everybody’s learning. Rookies, veterans, mistakes happen in the game, but in order to be a good team, you have to play clean. I keep saying that every week, you have to play a clean game. You can’t have missed assignments, you can’t have penalties, you can’t have penalties negating big plays, can’t have turnovers. Those are the things that hurt teams. When the Raiders stop beating the Raiders, we’ll go out there and we can beat anybody in this league, but we have to stop being ourselves first. It seems like that’s been a recurring thing every single week. I know it’s not for a lack of effort, I know it’s not for a lack of guys wanting to do well. I think guys are just learning as we go.”

 He wasn’t done, as he went into more detail.

“It’s football. Like I say all the time, it’s football. Nobody’s perfect. Things are going to happen, and we have to continue to push forward. I thought our defense played a tremendous game even after that turnover, they went out there and they held them to three points, right? They gave us a chance at the end. With [WR] Dont’e [Thornton Jr.], like I said, he’s a young player, very talented player. He’s still developing and all of these moments, all these situations, we’re all going to learn from, we’re all going to get better from. Never too hard on the guys. I want them to just continue to have that confidence in themselves because we’re going to need them.”

The Disappearance of Brock Bowers

Each week, the Silver and Black seem to leave people scratching their heads.  This week was no different.  How does a healthy Brock Bowers only get three targets and only one catch?

Geno Smith tried to explain it, “There’s heavy emphasis on [TE] Brock [Bowers]. Obviously when you go out there last week and have three touchdowns and have the performance he had, guys are going to see that on film and do whatever they can to stop him. We still have to find ways to get him the ball. We have to move him around and put him in a position where he can just go 1-on-1, but teams are going to double. They had a plan for him, and other guys had an opportunity to step up and that’s what they did.”