Sunday saw the Raiders and Chargers face off for a second time this season. A total of eight quarters. The first five of those quarters saw the Raiders turn the ball over six times. The last three looked like a polar opposite of the first five.
Down 10-0 early, the Raiders came alive. While the Raiders offense starting clicking, the defense was getting to Justin Herbert and created a turnover of their own and by the third quarter, they took the first lead and never looked back.
It’s one thing to win from wire-to-wire. But you can make an argument that not allowing early turnovers shake you and come back to win it is an even more impressive accomplishment.
“I think the character was on full display today,” said Derek Carr. “And watching our guys bounce back – I mean, we turned it over again, twice. Why, or the reason, it doesn’t matter; it’s what we did. We just make it hard on ourselves and then seeing everybody bounce back and keep believing, keep playing. Defense was playing great for us, keeping them off the scoreboard and all that. It’s good seeing both sides of the ball helping each other and playing that way, and the energy on the sideline was unbelievable.”
Those two turnovers only cost the Raiders one score and it was on a pick six, so the rest of the team had plenty of reason to believe in them and they had every reason to believe in themselves.
That defense didn’t give up a touchdown in the first half. Helped considerably by Chandler Jones who had three sacks and was responsible for setting up a fourth.
The offense hung around to pull back to a 10-10 tie in the second quarter and then blew up in the third quarter.
The two sides came together in the opening minutes of the third quarter. The first three plays saw Herbert throw incomplete, Duron Harmon force a fumble, Nate Hobbs recover it, and on the first play of the Raiders possession, Derek Carr throw deep for Davante Adams for a touchdown.
Once the Raiders got the ball back off a missed Chargers’ field goal, it took two plays for them to get back in the end zone.
On first down, Josh Jacobs broke a couple tackles to pick up 13 yards to the LA 45-yard line. Then the Raiders got tricky. Carr handed it off to Jacobs and it was a flea-flicker. Just like last week, it led to a deep touchdown. This time it was Adams who was wide open for his second deep touchdown in three Raiders offensive plays.
The Raiders were running away with it. Seizing on an energy they had throughout the game.
“Just the confidence, the juice, the unwavering belief in ourselves that we can play,” said Adams. “We show it every week, we just show it in bunches. For us it’s just about being as consistent as possible and just putting the same result on tape every time. If our defense goes out there and plays like that it keeps our mind in it too. Makes it a little easier. We don’t have to scramble when we have a slow start like that.”
What it comes down to is believing in themselves. The Raiders had won their last two games with last week’s win in Seattle even more impressive than the previous one. So, when they found themselves down, they knew it wasn’t a death sentence.
The defense had its best outing and the offense rode that to storm back and fly past the Chargers to take a 27-13 lead into the fourth quarter.
It would take two fourth-down conversions for the Chargers to drive for a touchdown late. But they would need to convert a third fourth down to have a shot to tie it up and that time the Raiders made the stop to take over on downs.
The way the Raiders won this game, you saw a team that seemed like they could beat any team on any given week.
They got pressure on defense, getting home for five sacks, forced a turnover and then converted that takeaway into points.
They got the ground game going and used it to hurt the Chargers when they sold out to stop it.
And they converted on long field goals and pinned the Chargers deep on punts. All the boxes checked to pull out a win over a team in the playoff hunt. That accomplishment can’t be overstated.
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