An upset win for the Oakland Raiders over the Denver Broncos snapped the team’s long losing streak to their AFC West rivals.
After losing to the Denver Broncos for every game in the Peyton Manning era, the Oakland Raiders finally scored a victory over their hated AFC West rivals, but it was with a different quarterback under center as young upstart Brock Osweiler’s winning streak as a starter was snapped on Sunday at Mile High Stadium. A world-beating performance from Khalil Mack helping to will the Raiders to a win after a 12-0 Broncos lead going into halftime.
Osweiler and the Broncos began the game by dominating all facets of the matchup, forcing the Raiders offense into a -12 yard performance in the first half. Von Miller and the Denver defense throwing everything at Derek Carr and the Oakland offense to fluster the Raiders into a shutout with no positive yardage through two quarters.
Luckily for the Raiders offense, the defense put up a fight in the first half against Osweiler and the Broncos offense. Holding the Broncos to four field goals in the half to keep the game manageable going into the locker room at halftime despite the Raiders failing to gain positive yardage on offense.
With a chance to make it a game on the opening drive of the second half, Carr responded from the struggles of the first half by driving the Raiders all the way down the field and into the endzone. Finding Seth Roberts yet again for Roberts fifth touchdown catch of the season to make it a 12-7 game.
After the opening drive to the half, the Raiders defense came even more alive, Khalil Mack leading the way by starting a sack parade off with a safety in the endzone that could have been a touchdown after a strip sack of Osweiler to make the score 12-9. Carr would feed off of that momentum, finding Mychal Rivera for the Raiders second passing touchdown to give Oakland a comeback lead after a fumble recovery on a muffed Broncos punt.
The Raiders would fail to go up four points after the touchdown as during the fumble recovery, long snapper Jon Condo injured his arm and could not snap the PAT attempt. Instead, head coach Jack Del Rio decided to go for the two-point convert and failed to keep the game within a field goal for Osweiler and the Broncos.
With the lead, the defense would only get stronger for the Raiders, giving the offense another chance to put points up on the board with Sebastian Janikowski in field goal range in the fourth quarter. Having Condo coming back to longsnap despite the injury, Janikowski would miss yet another big field goal this season from 45 yards out and left a window of opportunity for the Broncos to take back the game instead of building a six-point lead.
Luckily for the Raiders, Mack would finish off his big day, getting his fifth sack of the game on the Broncos final drive as Osweiler would fail to guide the Broncos to a single point in the second half. The Raiders finishing off eight consecutive quarters this season without giving up a touchdown to the Broncos to seal a 15-12 victory.
The win moves the Raiders to 6-7, but with three teams in the Wild Card hunt holding 8-5 records the upset today likely means little other than making a statement to the AFC West that this team is on the rise. With games against the Packers, Chargers and Chiefs left on the schedule the Raiders will be looking to finish strong as the ending of a long losing streak to the Broncos should fire up this roster to end the year on a high note.