Welcome to the fourth straight week of Loser Papers! What a fantastic roll the Washington Football Team have been on since their Bye Week. All looked pretty much lost in the 2021 season at that point. Washington were 2-6, and had a tough slate of games ahead of them. Then boom! Four wins in a row.
This week, the game came down to a final second kick, by a brand new kicker. Does it get any more nail-biting than that? Brian Johnson kicked a 48-yard field goal with just 42 seconds left in the game with the Las Vegas Raiders, to steal the victory at Allegiant Field.
The loss dropped the Raiders to the same 6-6 record as Washington, but put them on the outside of the AFC playoff hunt to start Week 14. Conversely, Washington moved up into the NFC’s 6th seed position, by virtue of their win.
Here are some of the hyperbolic things that the “Loser Papers” had to say…
One winning season in the past 19 years
From Raiders Wire:
The loss drops the Raiders to 6-6 on the season. So, it’s somewhat appropriate that the loss came against the man who was their head coach for their one winning season in the past 19 years. That was 2016. The Raiders would go 6-10 the following year and Del Rio would be fired after the final game of the season because Jon Gruden convinced Mark Davis he was the answer to their issues on offense.
Four years in, it’s pretty obvious the issues went well beyond coaching. The Raiders have not reached the same success in the post Del Rio era. As this stat speaks to.
Read the rest.
Should have been able to beat with ease
From ClutchPoints:
Derek Carr has been one of the best quarterbacks in all of football this season. But he has to be better and at least get his team into the end zone twice in a game. There’s no excuse for the Raiders only scoring 15 points against a team that they should have been able to beat with ease.
And:
There’s no excuse for the Raiders to be losing to a team like the Washington Football Team, but their offense just simply couldn’t get anything going.
Read the rest.
Absolute Failure
From silverandblackpride.com:
But beyond the man in charge, yesterday was an absolute failure by the coaching staff.
Greg Olson’s offense has now scored more than 16 points just once in the last five games, and even Gus Bradley doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on after the defense failed to keep Washington off the scoreboard on their two-minute drive.
At the end of the day, it’s pretty telling that the Raiders consistently and significantly play better on short weeks than longer ones, as they had 10 days to prepare for the Football Team. With more time to game plan, coaching plays a bigger factor in the game and the Silver and Black don’t seem to have the upper hand in that department, regardless of the opponent.