Las Vegas Raiders: Late errors crush hopes of a winning season

Raiders play for a field goal

Although debatable, Gruden’s approach on Vegas’ last offensive drive deserves some criticism. While we can understand the logic in milking the clock to drain the amount of time for an opponent to score on a final drive, the Raiders defense actually held up, while Fitzpatrick misfired through his first sequence under center.

Keep in mind Miami settled for a field goal once Fitzpatrick took over for Tua Tagovailoa. Even if he deserves more fault for his errant passes than Vegas deserves credit for its defense, the Dolphins didn’t have an unstoppable offense on the field.

We can agree, in any circumstance, teams have a greater probability of reaching the field-goal range than scoring a touchdown because of the distance to go. Sanders went into Saturday’s contest converting on nearly 91 percent of his field-goal attempts, and he scored on eight out of nine tries from 50-plus yards out with the longest from 56 yards.

If Gruden opts to score a touchdown, perhaps the defense comes up with a timely stop to end the game. At the very least, we know the Dolphins would’ve had a tougher task in driving the entire field than simply reaching Sanders’ range regardless of how much time is left on the clock.

With 19 seconds left in regulation, Miami needed a big heave or a costly penalty to set up its kicker in field-goal range, and the Raiders shot themselves in the foot twice on the same play.