Oakland Raiders 2019 midseason MVP, ROY, and more

Best Moment: Karl Joseph pass breakup vs. Lions

Perhaps it is recency bias, but Karl Joseph’s game-winning pass breakup against the Lions last weekend stands out as one of the best moments from the season thus far. Others were considered, like dominating the Denver Broncos in Week 1 in front of a raucous home crowd still very mad about the Antonio Brown saga, but none of the big moments so far seem as big as Joseph’s clutch play from Sunday.

In a must win for the Silver and Black, they turned in arguably their best performance of the campaign thus far. A back and forth affair, the teams traded hay-makers with the Raiders landing the fatal blow against Matthew Stafford and the Lions.

Derek Carr led a game-winning drive, delivering a dime to Jalen Richard over the top to send the Raiders into Lions territory. Eventually he found Hunter Renfrow for the game winner, but that would not seal it, the defense needed to come up with one more stop.

Stafford led the Lions down the field and got them to the three-yard line, but the clock was running and they were out of timeouts with no way to stop the clock as it was fourth down. Out of nowhere came a time out, from the Raiders. Low and behold, it was Karl Joseph who later explained that the defense was confused and were actually trying to get a timeout on the previous play.

The timeout was awarded and the Raiders set up their defense, thankfully for Joseph, he made a play that would nullify the conversation about whether he was right to call a time out or not. Stafford floated the ball to the back of the endzone for tight end Logan Thomas, who had an eight inch advantage over Joseph. Thankfully Joseph was able to climb the ladder and break up the play, resulting in a Raiders win that keeps their playoff hopes alive heading into the second half of the season.

Hopefully there will be a bigger moment down the line, perhaps a playoff-berth clinching play? But for now, this is the biggest moment of the Raiders season so far. In a couple of months we may be looking back at it, thinking about how it was the turning point for the season.