The Las Vegas Raiders will travel to Metlife Stadium in Week 13 to face the New York Jets for the second year in a row, how have both teams changed since their last matchup?
If it feels like the Raiders play the New York Jets every season it’s because they nearly have in recent history. When the Raiders travel to Metlife Stadium in Week 13 of the 2020 season, it will be the fourth time they have played each other since 2015 and the fifth in Derek Carr‘s seven year career.
This is thanks to them being a conference opponent and due to the shared struggles of both franchises over that same span.
Derek Carr has fared relatively well against the Jets in the past and is 2-2 against them but the Week 12 matchup last year was the beginning of the end for the Silver and Black in 2019. Coming in to the game the Raiders were a surprising 6-4 and were riding a three game winning streak.
The win against Cincinnati in Week 11 was not the most convincing but there was hope aplenty in Raider Nation of making a run to the playoffs.
If that hope was not extinguished in rainy New Jersey it was certainly put to the test. The Raiders were manhandled by a suddenly resurgent Jets team that ended the season on a 6-2 run after a 1-7 start. That game added more evidence to the case that Derek Carr struggles in bad weather games as it was a wet, rainy, and cold atmosphere that fit the mood of the Raiders after a brutal 34-3 loss.
The Raiders will once again travel to the East Coast in December and we can assume the weather will be a challenge, so what has changed in the months since and how can the Raiders avoid the same result?