The Las Vegas Raiders blew a golden opportunity on Thursday night against the Los Angeles Rams, but could they reel off four straight wins to close the season.
The 2022 NFL season was supposed to be a good one for the Las Vegas Raiders, after making the playoffs in 2021, and revamping their roster. Guys like Chandler Jones and Davante Adams were supposed to be the final pieces to a puzzle that made the Silver and Black perennial playoff contenders, but instead, the team has fallen short way too often in 2022.
There have been huge leads blown, terrible losses to teams they had no business losing to, and in the end, they go into Week 15 with a 5-8 record. While they are not technically eliminated from the playoffs right now, a miracle will be needed for them to get in, especially after the loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday night.
Playing against a three-win team with a quarterback who had 40 hours to learn the plays, the Silver and Black blew another monster lead, and then allowed Baker Mayfield to go 98 yards with no timeouts to beat them.
It was another shocking loss, and at 5-8, is another losing season on the horizon. To avoid that, the Raiders will have to win four straight, but is that a realistic possibility?
Raiders have been far too inconsistent to reel off four straight
Looking ahead, the schedule is there for the Raiders to win four straight, but after Thursday night, is this team really capable of doing so? The game against Los Angeles was supposed to be a given, but after dominating early, the Raiders took their foot off the gas, and once again, let a beaten team come back and win.
That has been the problem all year, and even though they play New England, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and probably a Patrick Mahomes-less Chiefs team to end the season, four straight wins feel like an impossibility.
Las Vegas Raiders at Rams 2022 Week 14: Things we learned
The Las Vegas Raiders added another embarrassing loss to their 2022 resume, and these were the main takeaways we got from Thursday night.
I believe the Raiders will split the final two games of the season, finishing at 7-10, and one of the more disappointing teams in the NFL. This season has been a nightmare at times, and while the three-game winning streak was nice, the final nail in the coffin came inside SoFi Stadium on Thursday night.