Raiders News: Head Coach Jack Del Rio Is Happy With How His Team Fought

The Oakland Raiders season came to an abrupt end Saturday afternoon, as they were defeated 27-14 by the Houston Texans in the Wildcard round of the postseason.

While it did not end how they hoped it would, it was still a very successful season for the Raiders who went 12-4 in the regular season and made the postseason for the first time since the 2002-03 season.

Pro Bowl quarterback Derek Carr went down with a broken fibula in Week 16 though, leaving backup Matt McGloin and rookie Connor Cook to handle the quarterback duties for the rest of the season.

Cook got the start against Houston and struggled a bit against a good Texans defense in his first start as a pro.

After the game head coach Jack Del Rio commented on the loss, saying that he is proud of how hard his team fought, via Raiders.com:

“Well, our season ended sooner than we really wanted. Got off to such a great start. Winning 12 games is not easy to do. It just came to an abrupt end the last two weeks. Not able to do enough as a team to carry on or continue on. Came into this game with two key areas that we were looking at. Win the turnover battle and out-rush the opponent. That is really a recipe for winning on the road in these playoffs, and we just didn’t get that done. I thought we fought throughout.”

No only was Carr not able to play, big Pro Bowl left tackle Donald Penn missed the first game of his 10-year career. Del Rio commented on how those injuries ultimately affected the outcome of their season:

“It didn’t help. Certainly didn’t help. The way all competitors look at it is we’re going to do what we can with who we have and expect to succeed. That’s the way we’re always going to approach it. We’re never going to yield. We’re never going to surrender. We’re going to go battle whoever we’re playing. Look to compete and look to find a way.”

The Raiders have a very talented young nucleus of players and a coaching staff that knows how to get the best out of their players to win, so look for them to build off of this success going into next season.