Penalties Were An Issue for the Raiders Defense
Free yardage is never anything a team wants to give to the opponent.
Especially against their rivals.
Yet in the last two weeks against the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs, 16 penalties were committed by the Las Vegas Raiders for a total of 154 yards.
Of those, 14 penalties were committed by the Las Vegas defense.
On Sunday against the Chiefs, the Raiders defense committed six penalties for 53 yards. In comparison, the Raiders offense only committed two penalties for 19 yards.
Head Coach Jon Gruden blamed himself after the game on Sunday about the increase in penalties.
“When the guys show up the day of the game, it’s hard to enforce these things (penalties)," Gruden said. "But it goes back on me. We have to get these men on the field and correct these problems, but I couldn’t be more proud of our football team. I wouldn’t trade any of our players for anybody. The effort that they’ve given us is tremendous. We have to eliminate the penalties and that starts with me.”
Part of the reason for the increased penalties is due to a few handful of Raiders defense getting placed on the COVID-19/Reserve list due to them identified as high-risk contacts.
From Nov. 18th to the 21st, half of the starting defense was attending practice via zoom.
Without a full defense in practice for a full week, mistakes were bound to happen. Miscommunications, simple errors, etc., that coaches couldn’t keep an eye on during the entire week.
Gruden made sure that his players knew that he was proud of their effort on Sunday despite the penalties, as the Raiders stayed head-and-toe with the Chiefs for the entire game.
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