Raiders Falter Again Vs. Bengals
The Las Vegas Raiders started the season 3-0, but now are a .500 team struggling to remain relevant after losing three straight games and five of their last seven.
Running back Joe Mixon rushed for 123 yards and two touchdowns, Evan McPherson kicked four field goals, and the Cincinnati Bengals, coming off their bye week after losing two in a row, dominated the Raiders, 32-13, on Sunday at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
The Raiders (5-5) lost their previous two games, 23-16, to the New York Giants and 41-14, to the Kansas City Chiefs, so they have scored only 33 points in their last three outings after building a 5-2 record.
“Our offense was just not in synch, other than that one explosive drive,” Raiders interim head coach Rich Bisaccia told reporters after the game. “We didn’t have a wide receiver catch a pass in the entire first half.
“And on defense, we committed several critical penalties that hurt us and helped them keep drives alive. Plus, we didn’t do a good job on third downs, and then we gave up all those points at the end.”
Mixon put the Bengals (6-4) ahead to stay with an 11-yard touchdown run to make it 10-6 with 4:15 left in the first half and applied the clincher with a 20-yard scoring run to build the lead to 29-13 with 3:51 left in the game.
Carr completed 19-of-27 passes for 215 yards and a touchdown, in addition to throwing an interception for the third straight game and losing a fumble when he was sacked for the second time in the final two minutes.
“We’ve been terrible the last few weeks and we came out flat again,” Carr said. “We’ve just been out of sync the last few weeks and it was the same again today. We’ve got another game in a few days against a good football team and we better figure it out.”
The Raiders could not move the ball consistently for most of the game.
The only time the Raiders showed how explosive they were at times earlier this season came when Carr took them 75 yards on three plays, hitting tight end Darren Waller for 25 and 31 yards before finding backup tight end Foster Moreau for a 19-yard touchdown to make it 16-13 with 11:42 left in the game.
However, second-year quarterback Joe Burrow drove the Bengals 75 yards in 12 plays for the clinching score, which came on his six-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase to make it 22-13 with 5:03 left in the game.
Burrow, the 2019 Heisman Trophy winner from LSU and the No. 1 pick of the 2020 NFL Draft by the Bengals, completed 20-of-29 passes for 148 yards and the touchdown without an interception.
Tyler Boyd led the Bengals with six catches for 49 yards, and Chase had three for 32.
McPherson’s field goals of 54, 53, and 51 yards kept the Bengals ahead until their offense scored those two touchdowns in the fourth quarter when he added a 47-yard field goal for the final points of the game with 3:51 left.
The Raiders committed seven penalties for 77 yards, helping the Bengals keep three scoring drives going.
Daniel Carlson gave the Raiders 3-0 and 6-3 leads in the first half, but the offense did nothing more until its only scoring drive of the game.
Waller led the Raiders with seven receptions for 116 yards, while wide receiver Hunter Renfrow had four catches for 30 yards after making seven receptions in each of the last three games.
Josh Jacobs rushed for only 37 yards on nine carries, including an 18-yarder, and caught five passes for 24 yards, while Kenyan Drake had only 23 yards on five carries.
Linebacker Denzel Perryman again led the Raiders with 12 total tackles, a number equaled by safety Johnathan Abram, while linebacker Cory Littleton was in on eight stops and cornerback Brandon Facyson had six.
The Raiders will attempt to get back on track Thursday in a Thanksgiving Day game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, against the Dallas Cowboys (7-3), who lost to the Chiefs, 19-9, on Sunday.
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