Raiders Could Capitalize On A Couple Of Buffalo Issues

The Buffalo Bills have a new coach this season, just like the Las Vegas Raiders. Klint Kubiak has been almost universally lauded for the decisions he’s made with the Raiders, but Joe Brady of the Bills, not so much. 

Saad Yousuf of The Athletic did a review of the league’s worst coaching decisions from Week 5, and Brady made the cut in the third spot of the writer’s top five list. 

It was a tough list to “win” given the clock management fiasco conducted by Dan Quinn of the Washington Commanders and Todd Bowles’ decision to go for a touchdown from the Dallas Cowboy’s 1-yard line when a field goal would have given the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a three-score lead with just over eight minutes left, but coaches do what they do when panic sets in or the analytics don’t quite make practical sense. 

In Brady’s case, his call happened in overtime when the Bills facing a second down from the Los Angeles Rams 27-yard line on the third possession in overtime, with two minutes remaining and the Rams out of timeouts.

The coach sent kicker Tyler Bass out for the game winning field goal, which Bass made, but Brady opened the door for disaster with his call. He could easily have milked down the clock with a pair of kneel-downs by quarterback Josh Allen to take the clock down to about 40 seconds. 

A miss would have given the ball to the Rams with two minutes left and quarterback Matthew Stafford at the helm, which is a sure-fire recipe on how to lose a game. To his credit, Brady acknowledged the error, and he probably also didn’t want to get into any of the issues involving possibly using running back James Cook III, who’s been a fumble waiting to happen lately. 

That tendency of Cook’s might represent a big opportunity for the Raiders this week. Two weeks ago they were leading the NFL in takeaways, but they’ve had just one in the last two weeks, and as a result their defense has been exposed. 

Expect Cook to be targeted hard every time he touches the ball, and they need every break they can get in a game where they’ll be punching well above their weight. 

As far as coaching gaffes go, Kubiak had one of his own against the Kansas City Chiefs, as he got cocky and took points off the board after a made field goal by going for it on fourth down in Chiefs territory in what wound up being a three-point game. It was yet another example of how easy it is for rookie coaches to get sped up when the game’s on the line.