The Oakland Raiders faced an unprecedented road trip in the first half of the 2019 NFL season, playing in Minnesota, Indianapolis, London, Green Bay and Houston in a span of five weeks. The trip took a visible toll on the Raiders, but they came out of it with a respectable 3-4 record on the year before finally returning home for three straight games.
Having a three-game homestand came at the perfect time for the Raiders, and they took advantage of it with three straight wins to move to 6-4, right in the thick of things in the AFC playoff race.
As the Raiders’ 2019 season approaches its end, so does their time in Oakland. Having the three-game homestand allowed Oakland fans to come out and support their team for the last few times before they relocate to Las Vegas.
After Sunday’s victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, Derek Carr understood the importance of these last few games at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum and did not want to disappoint, via Josh Schrock of NBC Sports Bay Area:
“When we were on that 11-month road trip across the globe,” Carr said laughing, “we talked leading into the Lions at home, I said, ‘We have set ourselves up to have a homestand at home with games that matter.’ November is the games they remember, right? Every coach has said that I’ve ever been with. We asked our fans to be loud for us, they were loud for us. We demanded that we won every one of those games here at home. We protected this place because this is a special place. And we did that.
“Now we have to go on the road again. But when we get back home, hopefully, there’s still some things that we need to be playing for. I hope that our fans are excited when we come back. But I hope they also make a couple trips with us and turn those stadiums into silver and black.”
The Raiders did not fail to deliver as everyone in the Coliseum got their money’s worth for each of the three games. Each was decided by one touchdown or less, and the final two games were sealed thanks to interceptions by the home team.
While performing for the Oakland faithful was important, making the playoffs is still the main focus. Winning those three games was key for head coach Jon Gruden, who is pleased that the team came out of the difficult trip and took care of business at home:
“We came off one of the most incredible road trips ever in the history of the NFL,” Gruden said after the win over the Bengals. “We played not only on the road, we played in foreign countries and across the world it seemed like every week. We came back and did what we had to do if we wanted to get in this thing.”
The Raiders are on the road the next two weeks, taking on the New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs. That latter will probably be the team’s most important game of the season as both squads are competing for the AFC West division championship. The final regular-season home game at the Coliseum will then be in Week 15 against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
