Las Vegas Raiders and the art of blowing double-digit leads
By Keith Ricci
The Las Vegas Raiders have been extremely bad at protecting seemingly insurmountable leads this season, and it has cost them dearly.
It’s rare for a football team to lose a game when leading by double digits at halftime. It’s even more rare for this to happen again. For the Las Vegas Raiders, they are making it seem like it is very easy to do.
The 2022 Raiders have accomplished this four times in the first thirteen games of the Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler era. For me, this has been the biggest issue facing the team this season.
Just how rare is it to lose this way? According to CBS Sports, every other NFL team since 2000 has won 89.9% of their games after 10+ point halftime leads. Losing in this fashion four times in a season makes the 2022 Raiders the first team since at least 1930 to accomplish that.
Here are the four dreadful Raiders losses in case you forgot:
- Raiders at home led Arizona 20-0 at halftime
- Raiders led 20-7 late in the 2nd quarter and then 20-10 at halftime vs Chiefs
- Repeated that against Jacksonville
- At the Rams last week, they led 13-3 at halftime and then 16-3 in the late 4th quarter
If the Raiders only held onto their big leads, they would be 9-4 with the 2nd best record in the AFC. Even if the Raiders won just 3 of those 4 games, they would be 8-5 and the 4th seed in the playoffs right now. Instead, they sit 5-8 with slim playoff chances. The frustrating part is Arizona, Jacksonville and the Rams are all losing teams who won’t be in the playoffs.