The Las Vegas Raiders entered Week 4 of the 2025 NFL season with plenty already on the line. Not only did they need to pick up their first win of the Pete Carroll era at Allegiant Stadium, but they needed to snap their two-game losing streak and get back to .500 in the early part of the season.
Fortunately, the team largely answered the call, as Ashton Jeanty had his best NFL game to date, Maxx Crosby had a Defensive Player of the Year-like performance, and the run defense completely patched up its holes from last week.
Unfortunately, all that effort was for naught, as veteran quarterback Geno Smith sank the team with three pivotal interceptions. He now leads the NFL with seven interceptions on the season, and he simply has to do better, or else Raider Nation will quickly give up on him.
Geno Smith insists that he'll be better for Raiders going forward
Through four weeks, Smith has proven that he will not pull any punches when speaking to the media. He'll take the full blame without any qualifications, which is still refreshing to hear. After the Week 4 loss to the Chicago Bears, he said something about himself that the fan base is hoping is true.
"There's a lot of things I'm going to have to fix within myself. You know, that's the reality. And I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I got to be a lot better, and I am a lot better, but it hasn't showed up," Smith said. "The guy that I'm supposed to be hasn't showed up yet. And so I'll take pride in fixing this stuff."
Raider Nation certainly expected Smith to be a lot better than he has been since a strong Week 1 performance. But just as fans were starting to lose hope, Smith took the podium and didn't shy away from addressing his shortcomings. He guaranteed that this isn't the player he is capable of.
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Well, the fan base surely hopes so. There were not many facets of the game that Las Vegas struggled in on Sunday, but they still lost because the turnover margin was so skewed, thanks to Smith's errors. Six touchdowns and seven interceptions are not going to cut it in this brutal AFC West division.
To make matters worse, the circumstances were far better for him, as ESPN's Ryan McFadden noted that the offensive line gave up just three pressures and zero sacks. The running game also got going, which is a quarterback's best friend.
Even if Smith isn't the same quarterback that he was during his two Pro Bowl campaigns, Raider Nation feels that he is better than he's shown the last three weeks. Thankfully, Smith still believes that as well, and everyone is hoping that he's right.