The Las Vegas Raiders have never been a friend of the National Football League. This dates back to the contentious days of Pete Rozelle and Al Davis during the AFL-NFL merger, and has somehow survived across decades. But I digress.
When the NFL releases its yearly schedule, it always gives Las Vegas the short end of the stick. In fact, Raider Nation makes it a habit to look for all the scheduling discrepancies or brutal stretches that the team has to endure in comparison to their counterparts.
Last year, for example, the Raiders had to begin the season with two consecutive road games against the Harbaugh brothers. This year, they'll travel to the East Coast for an early kickoff for two of the first three weeks of the season.
Raiders must overcome massive rest disadvantage vs. Commanders
But in Week 3, they'll be facing a different monster altogether. Not only will they be traveling to play in the Eastern Time Zone for the second time in three weeks to play the Washington Commanders, but they'll be doing so on a short week, which is already a big rest disadvantage.
To make matters worse, however, Washington played on Thursday Night Football last week. So, the Commanders get to return home and play on 10 days of rest, and the NFL schedules Las Vegas for a late Monday Night Football game and has them playing early in Washington the next Sunday.
This means that the Raiders got four days less of a rest than the Commanders did, which is an absolutely brutal thing to overcome. They already dealt with this last week as well, because the Chargers got two extra days of rest than Las Vegas did.
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Not only is this not fair, but it has to be intentional. There is no way that a team could face so many glaring disadvantages without some nefarious planning involved. In fact, the Raiders have the biggest rest disadvantage of any NFL team this season.
Somehow, the injury report would suggest that the opposite is true, as the Commanders will be without Jayden Daniels on Sunday, and only cornerback Decamerion Richardson enters the game with any injury designation for the Raiders.
Still, the NFL put Las Vegas up against the ropes for an already difficult matchup in Week 3. Pete Carroll and his squad are mentally tough, however, so they should be able to overcome it.