In a way, the Raiders' embarrassing home opener loss to the Panthers was predictable. The first month of the NFL always gets weird, and there's something oddly fitting about beating the Ravens in Baltimore one week, and then turning around and getting boatraced by the worst team in the NFL seven days later.
The Raiders played arguably their worst game of the Antonio Pierce era on Sunday, looking lacsidasical from the start in a 36-22 loss. Gardner Minshew was bad – and got pulled for Aidan O'Connell late in the 4th quarter – and a defense that spent all week being praised as one of the league's best gave up 36 points and 306 passing yards to Andy Dalton.
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There were plenty of poor performances across all three phrases, but after the game, it was the overall team effort that Antonio Pierce said he was most disappointed in. He then made it abundantly clear that this week of practice is going to suck. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't feel great about the chances of us getting any fun Raiders dance contest videos this week.
Antonio Pierce calls the Raiders out for making "business decisions" in their Week 3 loss
"No, they didn't," Pierce said when asked about whether he thought the Raiders showed up prepared to play. "I don't think it was a team thing. I think there were definitely some individuals who made business decisions. And we'll make business decisions going forward as well."
Yiiiiiiiikes. And that may not have even been the hardest soundbite that Pierce gave in his postgame presser. If anyone was wondering whether any Week 2 vibes would stick around through the rest of the season, at least you don't have to wonder anymore. When you're calling out your team for making business decisions in the home opener, things aren't going that great. I need every Twitter tape grinder out there to stop wasting time, dive in, and find out who Pierce was talking about.
The good news is that now, instead of a week-long quarterback decision controversy, the Raiders are going to have a week-long business decision controversy. That's like, 15% less annoying.