Raiders Routed By Rams, 35-21, As Losing Streak Reaches Four Games

The Las Vegas Raiders continued to come back to earth against the Los Angeles Rams, as they lost their fourth straight game by a score of 35-21 in a contest that really wasn’t as close as the score indicated. 

The game was basically over in the first half, as the Rams ripped through the Raiders’ porous defense for four touchdown drives while the Raiders could only manage a pair of field goals. 

The Rams featured balance between the pass and run on their drives, with Matthew Stafford using the short passing came to complement a running game that would average 5.2 yards per carry while pounding out almost 200 yards. 

Stafford threw three touchdown passes in the first half alone, with tight end Davis Allen catching two of them, one from three yards out and the other from five yards out. 

For the Raiders, meanwhile, it was more of the same, with quarterback Kirk Cousins under constant pressure and the running game unable to do much. The Raiders had to go away from the running game early when they got down 14-3, and it was surprising that Cousins wasn’t sacked more than two times for six yards. He did have to throw 44 times, though, completing 26 for 295 yards and a pair of touchdowns. 

The Raiders did fight back some to get those touchdowns, but they turned the ball over twice on downs in the third quarter, including once after recovering a fumble from Rams running back Kyren Williams at the Rams 30-yard line. 

Las Vegas did score two TDs early in the fourth quarter, with the first coming on a 37-yard touchdown strike from Cousins to receiver Tre Tucker, and the second on a 15-yard throw to running back Ashton Jeanty. 

A pair of failed conversions made it 28-18, but those turned out to be mostly cosmetic as the Rams quickly ended any thoughts of a Raiders comeback with a dominant 70-yard drive that ended with a four-yard touchdown run from running back Blake Corum. 

Corum and Williams both score touchdowns on the ground, with the two backs getting  getting 93 and 99 yards, respectively, as they took advantage of a Raiders interior defense that was basically a sieve. The Raider, meanwhile rushed 17 times for 48 yards, an average of 2.8 yards a carry. 

The Raiders’ next game will be a road affair against the New York Jets as they try to climb back to the .500 mark after dropping to 3-4.