Route 1 rout as Raiders whipped in New England

I don’t think anyone expected the Raiders of the past few seasons to show up Sunday at Gillette Stadium. Not with a season that had begun with so much optimism, success and progress.

Yet the Silver and Black’s performance against the New England Patriots sure liked nightmares of seasons past.

A scorched secondary. No running game to speak of. The quarterback under duress more often than night., The opposing QB having a field day at the Raiders’ defense’s expenses. And plenty of penalty flags.

It all adds up to a miserable day in rainy Foxboro, and that’s before the team busses had top navigate Route 1 to get to the airport in order to catch their flight back to Las Vegas.

The 45-17 loss to the Pats is a major step back for a team that is desperate to move forward. At 3-2, all is not lost. We even got a glimpse of what the future may look like as quarterback Fernando Mendoza made his NFL debut in the fourth quarter.

“It’s on me to get us ready to go and we weren’t ready to go,” Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak said.

Mendoza, the No. 1 overall pick in age 2026 NFL Draft, was 6 of 8 for 48 yards and ran for three more against a New England defense which had essentially called off the dogs. He played confidently and even when pressured late, maintained his poise.

“He did a good job,” Kubiak said of Mendoza’s first taste of the NFL. “All reps are valuable, all are important for him."

But the shortcomings we feared the Raiders had manifested themselves Sunday.

A running game that continues to sputter. Ashton Jeanty may not be 100 percent but with little to no room in which to operate, it’s not all on him. A passing game that simply lacks verticality and relies on one person — tight end Brock Bowers — to deliver can be defended easier than teams that can burn you deep.

And when your quarterback is not given a ton of time, well, does it really matter whether there’s someone who can go long? John Spytek, the Raiders’ general manager, went to great pains and spent a ton of money to upgrade the offensive line. And even with the return of Jackson Powers-Johnson at guard Sunday, the Raiders struggled to protect Kirk Cousins, failed to open holes for Jeanty and were unable to match Drake Maye and the New England offense shot for shot.

“They did a great job of pressuring us,” Kubiak said of the New England defense.

Maye may have struggled the first three weeks. But last week against Buffalo and Sunday against Las Vegas, he looked a lot like the guy who helped lead the Patriots to the Super Bowl a year ago. He torched the Raiders secondary, rookie corner Hezekiah Masses in particular. working him over to where Masses got flagged twice for penalties as part of a eight-flag, 101-yard afternoon for Las Vegas.

Maye threw for 374 yards and four touchdowns and ran for a fifth score. Overall, the Patriots set a franchise record for a regular season game with 536 total yards of offense. Even Tom Brady never accrued that much offense in a single game though he did participate in the old record of 516 set against Miami in 2011. The team record for any game, regular or postseason, is 613 yards set against the Eagles in Super Bowl LII.

How bad was it? Once again, center Tyler Linderbaum got flagged for offensive offsides on a 3rd-and-1 situation for having his head ahead of the football.

This was the kind of stuff we were used to when Josh McDaniels was coaching the Raiders. Or Antonio Pierce. Or Pete Carroll. New England led 35-10 going into the fourth quarter and the way Las Vegas was playing, there was no way the Raiders were coming back.

Even Bowers was not immune to miscues. His fumble late in the third quarter offset his 13-yard touchdown catch in the first quarter that actually tied the game 7-7.

But it was already going downhill if you want to be honest about it. The Pats were dominating offensively and Maye was picking the Raiders’ defense apart. And when Cousins and the Las Vegas offense couldn’t match the output generated by New England, that was all she wrote.

So after we all wondered how the Raiders would respond after losing for the first time a week ago when the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes bested them, what do we think now after seeing them get steamrolled all the way to Providence and with Josh Allen and Buffalo coming to Allegiant Stadium next week and the Bills Mafia ready to take over the joint?

Can Kubiak and his staff fix enough of the issues to stop this slide that is quickly turning October into a Halloween nightmare? Or will it be more of the same, that these are what the Raiders really are, that the critics who pooh-poohed the 3-0 start with the wins over the Dolphins, Chargers and Saints can claim it was little more than fool’s gold?

It should make for an interesting week at the Intermountain Health Performance Center, that’s for sure.