Las Vegas Raiders at Atlanta Falcons: 4 things we learned in Week 12

Las Vegas Raiders at Atlanta Falcons: 4 things we learned in Week 12

Same old Raiders rearing their ugly head

This story of the Raiders in the 21st century has been primarily about them beating the teams they shouldn’t be beating and losing to the teams they shouldn’t be losing to. This year, the Raiders beat three teams that they were not favored to beat, the New Orleans Saints, Kansas City Chiefs, and Cleveland Browns, which follows that trend.

To follow the opposite end of that trend, they of course just lost to the Falcons who they were favored against and were within a dropped touchdown of losing to the Chargers, who they were also favored against.

What usually caused those defeats over these two decades has been turnovers and penalties, a category where they have finished in the top-10 in nearly every year since 2000. Sunday, turnovers, and penalties were their downfalls, as the Raiders turned the ball over five times and were penalized an incredible 11 times for 141 yards.

They never had a chance against the Falcons, and probably could not have beaten any team in the league, even the Broncos without a quarterback, putting up those kinds of numbers.

The worrying thing about those issues is that they can quickly become the character of the team if the players and coaches don’t correct them and we have seen the team become looser with the football,l and looser with the discipline as the season has gone along.

If they don’t correct these issues soon then we could have a repeat of 2019 where the Raiders started off hot but ended the season 1-5 and missed the playoffs.