In a season full of low points for the Raiders, what happened Sunday afternoon in Cincinnati might just be the lowest.
The Raiders defense allowed Joe Burrow to have a career day while the offense played as the Raiders offense typically has this season. It gave way to yet another embarrassing result, this time in the form of a 41-24 drubbing.
"It wasn't a good enough effort,” coach Antonio Pierce said. “The score will tell you that. It was like that the entire game except for probably the first quarter. We'll reset over the bye week and use that time to really dive into what we need to fix this."
The season of low points has also been a season of déjà vu and Sunday’s game provided more of that as well. For the fourth time in five games, the Raiders scripted their opening drive perfectly and marched down the field for a touchdown. Stop me if you’ve heard that before. The Raiders haven’t won a single game during that stretch, mind you.
Aside from a Daniel Carlson field goal with 2:58 remaining in the first half, the Raiders didn’t score another point until the fourth quarter. And that wasn’t even courtesy of the offense, it came on Jack Jones’ fourth career interception return touchdown. The Raiders offense did get one more touchdown in garbage time after benching Gardner Minshew in favor of newly acquired Desmond Ridder, who found rookie tight end Brock Bowers for Bowers’ second career receiving touchdown from 22 yards out during fourth quarter garbage time.
Burrow’s day included five passing touchdowns, matching his career high. The lone mistake he made all afternoon was on the interception to Jones, which was more of a great play by Jones to read and then jump the screen than it was anything else. Burrow’s final stat line saw him complete 27-of-39 passes for 251 yards in addition to those five touchdowns and the interception.
The Raiders’ run defense hardly provided any reprieve. Bengals running back Chase Brown ran for a steady 120 yards on 27 carries, several of which came in timely spots for their offense. It was tight end Mike Gesicki who did the most damage though, as he caught 5 passes for an average of 20 yards (100 total) per completion. Oh, and two of those were touchdowns. For a Raiders defense that was supposed to be making headlines for other reasons, it was an especially damning performance.
Jakobi Meyers was the one consistent for the Raiders offense on Sunday. He tallied 105 yards on 8 receptions, good for an average of 13.1 yards per catch. Trevon Moehrig anchored the defense with his second straight highlight reel performance as the safety racked up 13 total tackles (8 solo) after recording his first interception of the season last Sunday against the Chiefs.
With Sunday’s loss, the Raiders finally make it to their bye week. Granted, it feels like it has come about four weeks too late for this team. They’ll be met with a trip to Miami to face the Dolphins once they return. That game feels like more of a challenge than it did a few days ago considering how close the Dolphins played the Bills on Sunday, but then again everything is a challenge for the Raiders.