The Raiders were unable to capitalize on a season-high three takeaways, losing their eighth straight game in a 28-13 defeat to the Buccaneers on Sunday in Tampa. Baker Mayfield still shredded the Raiders’ defense for 295 yards and 3 touchdowns despite being the culprit of all three turnovers.
A dark season for the Silver and Black got even darker with just over a minute remaining in the third quarter. Trailing 14-10, starting quarterback Aidan O’Connell went down on a late shove and was carted off the field with what is believed to be a broken leg. From that point, the Raiders were outscored 14-3 for the final 16:37 of the game.
The Raiders nearly took the lead on the previous drive, but O’Connell threw a deflating interception inside Tampa’s 10-yard line that took a majority of the wind out of the team’s sails. Any positivity that remained after that disappeared when O’Connell left the field in an air cast.
Ridder was pedestrian in relief, completing 12 of his 18 passes for 101 yards in just over a quarter. It was a slight improvement over O’Connell, who left the game after completing 11-of-19 passes for 104 yards while throwing an interception.
Sincere McCormick and Michael Mayer’s emergence were the highlights of the Raiders’ offense. McCormick ran for 78 yards on 15 carries, the team’s single-game high this season. Mayer also had his best performance of the season, catching seven passes for a team high 68 yards.
After giving up two early and easy touchdowns, the Raiders defense had its most active performance of the season for the remainder of the first half. They intercepted two of Mayfield’s passes and forced him to fumble in addition to recording three sacks in the second quarter alone. In truth, a win didn’t seem entirely out of the question at that point with the defense building momentum going into the locker room.