The Las Vegas Raiders avoided an absolute disaster by pulling out a miracle victory over the winless New York Jets in Week 13.
Congratulations to Derek Carr, Henry Ruggs, and the Las Vegas Raiders for avoiding utter disaster this week against the winless New York Jets in their miraculous 31-28 comeback victory. Thanks to a last-second score, and perhaps a nefarious defensive play call by one Gregg Williams (wink wink), Ruggs beat rookie corner Lamar Jackson one-on-one to glide into the end zone and catch a wide-open pass from Carr to give the Raiders the lead.
I think I speak for all of Raider Nation here when I say, phew! That was truly a close call and almost complete disaster for this Raiders team that has been so good to this point. Two weeks ago, the Raiders got stomped by the Falcons in Atlanta, perhaps predictable in hindsight, but then coming into this past week, they needed to win this game against the worst team in football.
To their discredit, they probably should have lost this game considering they underperformed yet again. Carr’s stats look better because of the late score, but the Raiders wound up 6-for-14 on third downs and struggled to take care of the football once again, with a lost fumble and interception.
Not only that, but they also got outgained in yards per play 6.3-to-5.9. Luckily for the Raiders, the Jets want Trevor Lawrence badly in this year’s draft, so winning football games is not something they are particularly looking to do nowadays.
Some say Gregg Williams was instructed to lose this game, so he called a zero blitz on that last play to leave Jackson on an island with Ruggs. I say leave the conspiracies alone, but Williams did call a zero blitz on that last play to leave Jackson on an island with Ruggs, so you draw your own conclusions.
He was fired this week by the way.