The Las Vegas Raiders continue to find new ways to lose. For a brief moment, it looked like the team would do enough to snap their seven-game losing streak with a Black Friday win over the Kansas City Chiefs.
With less than two minutes left, the offense drove into field goal range and just needed to get off one clean play to allow kicker Daniel Carlson a chance to hit a game-winning field. Unfortunately, rookie center Jackson Powers-Johnson had other ideas.
He decided to snap the ball early when Aidan O'Connell wasn't ready, which led to the ball being loose. The Chiefs recovered the ball and they won 19-17. Obviously, Carlson had missed three field goals at that point so there's no guarantee he would've been good to win, but this would've been a shorter attempt.
What a WILD ending on Black Friday 👀 pic.twitter.com/JtYRVva6Zy
— NFL (@NFL) November 29, 2024
This loss falls mostly on Powers-Johnson. The rookie second-round pick has played very well since getting moved to center but this was just such a bad mistake. Carlson deserves some of the blame for the loss as the team missed out on nine points because of him, but Powers-Johnson literally handed the win to the Chiefs.
Head coach Antonio Pierce also mismanaged this game once again. A win in this spot may have been enough to give him enough years but it's hard to see how the Raiders bring him back. His team is making careless mistakes and he has no clue how to manage a game.
Powers-Johnson is in for a rough week but the team can't give up on him now. He's shown a lot of promise and this one ugly mistake shouldn't define him. That said, this is about as bad as it can get for a rookie player. The only silver lining here is that the Raiders stay in contention for the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.