Raiders recover, win their sixth straight
OAKLAND — It’s never over with these Raiders.
A 15-point deficit quickly turned into a two-touchdown lead Sunday and the darlings of the NFL extended their winning streak to six games with a 38-24 victory over the Buffalo Bills.
“We’ve been really good about staying the course and staying in the fight and finding a way,” coach Jack Del Rio said. “Today was another example of that.”
In what seemed like a flip of a switch, the Raiders (10-2) showed the rest of the league just how dangerous they can be. Facing a 24-9 deficit with nine minutes left in the third quarter, Oakland scored 29 unanswered points and dominated each phase of the game in doing so.
“We feed off each other, that’s for sure,” quarterback Derek Carr said. “You can always tell when someone makes a play, the stadium gets going, the momentum starts swinging.”
It was the offense on Sunday that got it going in the right direction. Following the Bills’ second straight touchdown to open the third quarter, Carr shook off an unimpressive first half to lead a nine-play, 75yard touchdown drive, and the offense suddenly had its rhythm going.
The defense pounced, forcing a three-and-out that preceded a 17-yard punt return from Jalen Richard to set the offense up at the Bills’ 38-yard line. Richard broke a 21-yard run on the first play and Latavius Murray had a 1-yard touchdown that suddenly put the Bills back on their heels. The Raiders eschewed a potential two-point conversion, instead pulling within a point at 24-23 with the extra point.
The Raiders shut down the Buffalo offense again, with David Amerson provided excellent third-down coverage on Sammy Watkins. That put the ball back in the hands of Oakland’s dangerous offense.
“We couldn’t just keep letting them go down like we did in the beginning of the second half,” Amerson said. “We knew we couldn’t keep letting that happened. Once we flipped that switch, we didn’t look back.”
And once the Raiders had the ball with a chance to take the lead, they were like sharks smelling blood. Carr gunned a perfect back-shoulder pass over the middle on third-and-10 to Mychal Rivera for 22 yards, then hooked up deep with Amari Cooper for a 37-yard touchdown that put Oakland on top.
“Sometimes you feel that momentum shift and it just snowballed on us,” Bills coach Rex Ryan said. “Sometimes I think we lose confidence. You can’t ever have that happen to you. To their credit now, this (Raiders) team has done this a bunch. This is a heck of an offense.”
And the defense, while it struggles plenty of times, finds a way to feed off that energy.
“We’re a team,” linebacker Malcolm Smith said. “There’s times we have to work hand in hand. They’ve carried us a lot of times, it’s nice when we can show up and help them out and give them an opportunity to put us back in the game.”
Trailing for the first time all game, the Bills suffered through their third straight three-and-out as the life seemed to be sucked out of them. The Raiders finally went a possession without scoring, but set the defense up to make a play when punter Marquette King pinned Buffalo at the 4-yard line.
Khalil Mack, who may be joining Carr in the MVP discussion, blasted into the backfield to pressure quarterback Tyrod Taylor. He deflected the ball at the line and that led to a fluttering pass that Nate Allen intercepted at the Bills’ 16. The Raiders converted that into another Murray touchdown to complete their 29-point blitz that led Buffalo stunned.
“They kind of hit us quick,” Bills linebacker Lorenzo Alexander said. “They went out and made the plays they needed to make to come back and win the game.”
If the Bills had one lastditch effort in them, Mack wasn’t going to let it be realized. Buffalo used its nohuddle offense to charge down to the Raiders’ 17, but for the second straight week Mack delivered a game-clinching strip sack that he recovered, and the Raiders had their 10th win of the season in sight.
Offer the Raiders those 10 wins at the start of the season and they might’ve been jumping to accept after 13 straight non-winning seasons. But this team looks far from satisfied — an attitude it will need as it approaches a first-place battle against the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday night.
“I’m happy, trust me, don’t get me wrong,” Murray said, “but this is another big one for us. We still have some work to do and (the Chiefs) stand in the way of that — they really do. I’ll smile when we get our goal at the end of the season.”
The Raiders even seem to be buying into the school of thought that teams that grind out wins might just be more dangerous than those that dominate.
“You don’t want to live on the edge, but it’s always nice to be able to come back and play a way better second half if you find yourself down,” Smith said. “I think that’s a part of the process, getting better and figuring out that you can win.”
With six fourth-quarter come backs now in the books this season, the Raiders sure seem to have it figured out.