Raiders Wild Card vs Bengals: 3 key matchups to watch
By Alex Perl
The Raiders will be making their highly anticipated return to the playoffs this weekend in a showdown with the Bengals, and here are three key matchups.
What the Las Vegas Raiders are up against on Saturday is not an unfamiliar foe. The Cincinnati Bengals came into Las Vegas in Week 11 and utterly annihilated the Raiders by a score of 32-13.
That loss gave the Raiders a third straight in as many games, and the team was reeling in team and personnel turmoil.
The Silver and Black seem to be a much more motivated and determined bunch as of late. On a four-game winning streak at the moment, and riding the wave of its latest victory — which culminated in a thrilling playoff-clinching win over a hated division rival in the Los Angeles Chargers, this franchise as a whole seems to be in a far different place than when the Bengals decimated them in Week 11.
It will be a tall task to knock off a team that not only beat the Raiders earlier this season but prove victorious at their home field. But after facing so much adversity this season, possibly this task will seem like a small one, or at least that is the hope.
Let’s take a look at three key matchups that will either doom or continue this magical Raider run.