Las Vegas Raiders coach Antonio Pierce emphasizes that physicality is a key part of his football team’s identity.
However, that identity seemed to struggle once again.
The Kansas City Chiefs (7-0) pushed their way to a 27-20 win on Sunday, remaining unbeaten, while the struggling Raiders (2-6) faced their worst offensive performance of the season, losing their fourth game in a row.
“(We’re) trying to establish some physicality with our guys up front,” Pierce said. “That was part of our identity and DNA that we’ve been harping on. We harped on it in training camp. We’re going to continue to harp on it.”
Las Vegas finished with just 228 yards, their lowest this season, and only managed 33 rushing yards, the fewest against the Chiefs since they rushed for only 31 yards on December 5, 2004.
The Raiders’ average of 1.57 yards per carry was their second-lowest ever against Kansas City, with the lowest being 0.73 on December 3, 1995.
Only three teams have averaged less than 2.0 yards per carry in a game this season, and the Raiders have done it twice, both times finishing with 1.6 yards per carry, including in this game.
“It was a good defensive front,” said running back Alexander Mattison, whose average of 1.07 yards per carry is the third-worst for a Raiders player with 14 or more carries in a game. “Got to give props to those guys on the other side of the ball. They did a good job. We have to do better in our execution. We have to do better schematically, however you look at it.”
“We’ll look at tape, we’ll see what went wrong and what could have gone better. I’ve got to fight for extra yards and do things to try to get it going.
But it takes a team effort, so we have to make sure we look at it as a team, be accountable as a team, and do what we can to make sure that we’re on the other side of that and we don’t continue to let that happen.”
Pierce, Mattison, and quarterback Gardner Minshew all dismissed the idea that offensive coordinator Luke Getsy’s play calling should be questioned, even though only four of the Raiders’ offensive drives lasted more than four plays.
They had a chance to take the lead after an interception put the offense at Kansas City’s 3-yard line in the third quarter. However, Mattison was stopped on three straight runs, and Minshew was sacked on fourth down.
“I think there’s two sides to the story,” Mattison said. “There’s the play-calling and there’s execution. Both of them have to be in alignment. And there were a couple of times when they weren’t.
We just have to own up to it, take accountability, and make sure we go out there and do a better job on the next drive, on the next play.”
“There were just too many times in this game when we weren’t able to execute. We get into certain situations where we need to execute and come away with points, and we didn’t. And of course, we can’t turn the ball over.
That’s been a theme this season that has cost us games, and because of that, we need to make sure we keep those off the board.”
The Raiders will face Cincinnati next Sunday before their bye week, which will give them a better chance to fix their offensive problems.
