Offense falters, defense shines, but Raiders still plummet in power rankings after squandering a chance against a struggling Broncos team.
The 2025 Las Vegas Raiders have been one of the most interesting stories of the season. Despite lofty expectations, the Raiders sit last in the AFC West by a wide margin and continuously find ways to lose in more embarrassing ways than the prior week.
In Week 10, with the whole football world watching on Thursday Night Football, the Raiders failed to score more than the required 10 points to get their third win of the season against their divisional rival in the Denver Broncos. While the now 8-2 Broncos were having one of their worst performances of the season, Las Vegas failed to punish them. Now, the Raiders are 2-7, 10 weeks into the 2025 season.
For their performance, the Raiders have yet again moved down the Bleacher Report’s power rankings heading into Week 11. Though they slid just one spot down to No. 28, the Raiders have found themselves now among the bottom five teams in the league.
Week 10 was much of the same story for head coach Pete Carroll and the Raiders. The offense struggled mightily again, failing to reach 200 total yards of offense. Quarterback Geno Smith was sacked six times and threw another interception to add to his season total of 12. The ground game also failed to show up against Denver, as rushers averaged just three yards per carry to finish the day with just 74 total rushing yards.
Following a monstrous Week 9, tight end Brock Bowers was held to a quiet night of just one catch on Thursday. The only receiver to make somewhat of an impact against Denver was newly signed Tyler Lockett, who had a modest five catches for 44 yards.
The Las Vegas defense showed up in the absence of the offense, recovering a fumble and bringing in two interceptions while holding Denver to just 10 points. Still, if one side of the ball is working for the Raiders, the other is failing miserably, and the good defensive outing just wasn’t enough to make up for the offense’s faults.
“It's another lost year for a lost franchise being led by the NFL's oldest head coach,” the B/R NFL Staff wrote in their recent rankings. “The Raiders need torn down to the studs and rebuilt from the ground up—and Pete Carroll may not be the best man for that sort of multi-year effort.”