Raiders cling to playoff chances
The paths for Denver and Las Vegas have been somewhat similar this season with 3-0 starts followed by rough patches that have both in the same spot heading into the stretch run.
The Broncos (7-7) and Raiders (7-7) are in a cluster of four teams tied for 10th place in the AFC headed into their meeting in Las Vegas on Sunday with neither team likely able to afford another loss.
“We’re excited that we are relevant in December,” Raiders interim head coach Rich Bisaccia said. “That’s what we all try to do. We all want to get in the tournament.”
Being relevant isn’t exactly like the “Just win, baby” credo to which the franchise once clung. But after only one playoff berth the past 18 seasons, it is a sign of at least marginal progress.
It has come in a difficult season in which head coach Jon Gruden resigned in October over the publication of offensive emails and receiver Henry Ruggs III getting cut after being charged with felonies in a fatal DUI crash that killed a 23-yearold woman.
Ruggs’ release was followed by five losses in six games, but the Raiders managed to stay alive with a last-second, 16-14 win at Cleveland on Monday over the COVID-thinned Browns.
“The only thing that matters is that we won,” quarterback Derek Carr said. “When we did that, I wouldn’t say it was a sense of relief, but it was a sense of like, ‘OK, let’s go now.’ ”
The Broncos are hoping to avoid their first six-year playoff drought since first making the postseason in 1977 when they went all the way to the Super Bowl.
With quarterback Teddy Bridgewater sidelined with a concussion, Drew Lock will make his first start since Week 17 last season when he threw for a career-high 339 yards and two TDs with no interceptions in a home loss to the Raiders. Lock threw four interceptions in a loss at Las Vegas last season and performances like that were why the Broncos went with Bridgewater this season.
The success Las Vegas had early in the season generating big plays has been hard to find of late. The Raiders have gone back-to-back games without a play from scrimmage gaining at least 20 yards for the first time since 1992.
Despite that, they are still tied for the most big plays this season with 65, with seven coming in the first game against the Broncos.
The Raiders had a seasonhigh five sacks in the first meeting, with Maxx Crosby involved in all of them with one solo sack and four half-sacks. Crosby doesn’t have any sacks since that game despite generating the most pressures on the quarterback this season, according to Pro Football Focus. It has been an issue recently for the Raiders, who had 21 sacks the first eight games, but only eight in the past six.
Akers practices: Running back Cam Akers has returned to practice with the Rams, taking one of the final steps in his rapid comeback from a torn Achilles tendon.
The Rams (10-4) also designated Akers, the team’s leading rusher as a rookie last season, for return from injured reserve, which means he is in a 21-day window for reactivation to the roster.
Akers now seems likely to be in uniform at some point in the final three games for the Rams, who are even with Arizona (10-4) atop the NFC West. Los Angeles visits Minnesota on Sunday and travels to Baltimore next week before finishing the regular season at home against the 49ers.