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Las Vegas Raiders 2020 Week 17 review: Studs and Duds

By Khaled Abdallah

DENVER, COLORADO - JANUARY 03: Darren Waller #83 of the Las Vegas Raiders celebrates after catching a pass for a two point conversion against the Denver Broncos in the final seconds of the fourth quarter at Empower Field At Mile High on January 03, 2021 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
DENVER, COLORADO - JANUARY 03: Darren Waller #83 of the Las Vegas Raiders celebrates after catching a pass for a two point conversion against the Denver Broncos in the final seconds of the fourth quarter at Empower Field At Mile High on January 03, 2021 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images) /
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The 2020 Raiders fell short of expectations. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
The 2020 Raiders fell short of expectations. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports /

COVID and the Raiders 2020 Season: Dud

Rather than focusing on what went wrong in today’s game, I’m going to end this season on a high note, just like the Raiders did. There will be no duds from the win against Denver, but there is one massive dud that cast a shadow over all 256 NFL games including of course the 16 featuring your Las Vegas Raiders.

That dud is of course the COVID-19 virus, which threatened to derail the entire NFL season and did its best to cause plenty of problems for the Raiders. The number of players that missed games due to contracting a virus or just making close contact with someone who did is too many to count but several key players stood out.

All-Pro RT Trent Brown was out for most of the season due to COVID complications, and starters like Henry Ruggs, Clelin Ferrell, Johnathan Abram, and others missed time because of the virus.

It was a waiting game every week to see which Raiders would be ruled out for the upcoming game and it was awful to get the notification when the news dropped.

COVID did its best to derail the Raiders’ season, and it did its fair share of damage to the rest of the NFL, but the best teams in the NFL were able to carry on and keep competing. The Raiders are unfortunately not one of the best teams, so even the slightest issues threatened to keep them from reaching the promised land of the playoffs.

This is not to make excuses about how the Raiders season went, and it is not to say that they make the playoffs without COVID looming over everything, but it sure didn’t make it any easier. The virus also kept Raider Nation from experiencing the shiny new stadium we have been waiting so long for and eliminated any home-field advantage the Raiders could have had in their debut season in Las Vegas.

Let’s hope that this country and the NFL gets everything in order in time for the 2021 season so Raider Nation can make its presence felt in Allegiant Stadium and inspire the silver and black to a few more wins at home.

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