Raiders Featured Some Very Ugly Numbers In Loss To LA

The Las Vegas Raiders lost another tough game last Sunday, this time to the Los Angeles Rams. The final score had the Rams winning 35-21, but some of the numbers told a brutal story, and Levi Edwards of Raiders.com did a deeper dive that revealed far more about this game than the final score.

Halftime score: Rams 28, Raiders 6

Plenty of teams come back from big halftime margins in the NFL, but three scores is a big ask, especially when all of those three touchdowns would have required a two-point converstion. 

But it was the way those numbers came about that made this game so lopsided. The Rams scored almost at will throughout the game, save for a brief stretch in the third quarter extending early into the fourth where the Raiders got a pair of touchdowns that were basically meaningless. 

Rushing yards: 48

This is a familiarly ugly number that we’ve seen before. The Raiders haven’t shown anything resembling a real running game since their Week 1 win over the Miami Dolphins, with Ashton Jeanty averaging just 1.9 yards per carry. The Raiders now have 523 rushing yards through seven games, per Edwards, and they’ve fallen into the bottom five of the league in rushing offense. Jeanty’s quotes included watching film, trying to get better in the running room and the offensive line room, and coming together, none of which anyone wants to read or hear at this point. 

Rams rushing yards: 199

There’s bad, and then there’s this number. The Rams nearly had two 100-yard rushing performances in the same game by Blake Corum and Kyren Williams, and that made it easy for quarterback Matthew Stafford to supplement with the short passing game. Linebacker Nakobe Dean offered more of the usual quotes: “got to perform,” “pick that up,” and so on. Sometimes it’s better to say nothing when you’re that badly outclassed. 

First-half tight end yards: 21

This one’s interesting. Michael Mayer and Brock Bowers finished with nine catches for 95 receiving yards, but per Edwards they had two receptions and 21 yards in the first half. The Rams simply treated Bowers like a receiver and put a cornerback on him, and Jaylen Watson responded by recording four pass deflections. 

Red zone scoring percentage: 20

If you’re looking for a simple different in this game, the Rams went 5-5 in the red zone, while the Raiders were 1-for-5. That’s how you get behind 28-6 at halftime, and it made most of the second half irrelevant.