These Raiders are nothing if not interesting. Last week they defied the odds to beat the Ravens 26-23 in Baltimore. This week they come home and defy the odds again…losing badly to what was previously a hapless Panthers team.
This wasn’t even really a close one. The Panthers drove right down the field on the opening drive for a touchdown.
The Raiders responded with a three-and-out.
To be fair, the Raiders did eventually score a touchdown to tie it up. The big play was a 54-yard bomb to Tre Tucker and Alexander Mattison finished it off with a touchdown run to tie it at 7-7.
But the scoring stopped for the Raiders after that. Meanwhile the Panthers continued their deluge of scoring. And they did it on the arm of Andy Dalton.
Dalton made several gorgeous, perfect throws, including two touchdown passes — one to Diontae Johnson and the other to Adam Thielan — to put the Panthers up 21-7 at the half.
The Raiders got the ball first in the third quarter, but could do nothing with it. The Panthers got the ball and drove for a field goal.
The ensuing drive, Antonio Pierce made another one of the head scratching decisions to go for it in their own territory. On fourth and one, they attempted a QB keeper and it was stopped for no gain to give the Panthers the ball at the Vegas 37. They added another field goal off the field position alone to make it a 27-7 game.
By this point, the Raiders had converted just two third downs and twice turned the ball over on downs. Only this time the defense wasn’t bailing them out.
Andy Dalton was 22 of 31 for 286 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions for a 131.9 passer rating. That’s 36-year-old backup Andy Dalton. And his top receiver Diontae Johnson had six catches for 108 yards and a TD.
The mostly Raiders crowd was booing loudly as the Raiders offense floundered and the defense was getting gouged by Andy Dalton and the Panthers offense.
They would add another touchdown in the fourth quarter, just for good measure to go up 33-7.
Minshew would throw a garbage time TD and two-point conversion, both to Jakobi Meyers to get into double digits. Then he would throw a garbage interception to CB Mike Jackson at his own 25. They added another field goal to make it a 36-15 game.
Another garbage time TD, this time from Aidan O’Connell to Tre Tucker gave us our final score of 36-22.
Dalton continued his ownage of the Raiders in his career. He became the first QB this season to throw for over 300 yards (319) with three touchdowns in a game. He is now 4-0 in starts over the Raiders, with three different teams.
Panthers running back Chuba Hubbard finished with 114 yards on the ground while averaging 5.4 yards per carry.
The Raiders fall to 1-2 on the season. The Panthers improve to 1-2 on the season.