LAS VEGAS (AP) — Las Vegas Raiders coach Antonio Pierce insists physicality is stitched into the fabric of his football team.
The fabric appeared to get snagged, again.
The Kansas City Chiefs (7-0) muscled their way to a 27-20 victory Sunday to stay unbeaten, while the listless Raiders (2-6) had their worst offensive day of the season while losing their fourth straight game.
”(We’re) trying to establish some physicality with our guys up front,” Pierce said. “That was part of our identity and DNA that we’ve been harping on. We harped on in training camp. We’re going to continue harp on it.”
Las Vegas finished with a season-low 228 yards while its 33 yards rushing were its fewest against the Chiefs since it rushed for a mere 31 on Dec. 5, 2004. In addition, the Raiders’ 1.57 yards per carry were their second-fewest ever versus Kansas City, the lowest being 0.73 on Dec. 3, 1995.
Only three teams on four occasions have averaged less than 2.0 yards per carry in a game this season. And it was the Raiders who did it twice, both times finishing with 1.6 per carry, including Sunday.
“It was a good defensive front up front,” said running back Alexander Mattison, whose 1.07 yards per carry is third-worst for a Raiders player with 14 or more carries in a game. “Got to give props to those guys on the other side of the ball. They did a good job. We have to do better in our execution. We have to do better schematically however you look at it.
“We’ll look at tape, we’ll see what went wrong, what could have went better. I got to fight for extra yards, do things where I can try and get it going. But it takes a team effort, so we have to make sure we look at it as a team, be accountable as a team, and do what we can to make sure that we’re on the other side of that and we don’t continue to let that happen.”
Pierce, Mattison and quarterback Gardner Minshew all scoffed at the notion offensive coordinator Luke Getsy’s play calling should be called into question, despite the fact only four of the Raiders’ offensive drives lasted longer than four plays.
Like when they put themselves in position to take the lead after an interception in the third quarter placed the offense at Kansas City’s 3. But Mattison was stopped on three consecutive runs before Minshew was sacked on fourth down.
“I think there’s two sides of the story,” Mattison said. “There’s the play-calling and there’s execution. Both of them have to be in alignment. And there was a couple times where they weren’t. We just have to own up to it, take accountability, and make sure that we go out there and do a better job on the next drive, on the next play.
“There was just too many times in this game where we just weren’t able to execute. We get in certain situations we have to execute, we have to come out with points, and we didn’t. And of course, we can’t turn the ball over. That’s been a theme this season that has taken us out of games, and for that reason we have to make sure we keep those off the board.”
The Raiders are at Cincinnati next Sunday before their bye week, when they’ll have a better chance to remedy their offensive woes.
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