The Oakland Raiders faced off against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 3 and ultimately came up short in a 34-14 to fall to 1-2 on the season.
It was a long afternoon for the Raiders as the Vikings were able to convert on several chunk plays that gave them a comfortable lead early on. After that, Minnesota was able to kill most of the game clock with their running backs and secure the victory.
In his postgame presser, head coach Jon Gruden had nothing but praise for the Vikings’ performance and tried to explain why his team came out so slow, via Raiders.com:
“Well I don’t know if flat-I mean they took the opening kickoff right down the field and scored. And then they overcame the 3rd-and-9 penalty, they got restarted, [Kirk] Cousins made a big throw to [Adam] Thielen to get up seven nothing, the crowd gets in the game, I think we’re three-and-out, and shortly after that it’s 14 nothing. Correct me if I’m wrong, I just saw a couple weeks ago Atlanta came in here and it was 28 nothing at the end of the third. You fall behind against this team early they have the closers that make it very difficult on you and the noise doesn’t hurt.
We had a lot of guys get hurt today: Linebacking corps, Marquel Lee, Nick Morrow, [Vontaze] Burfict left most of the game. And they are one heck of a running football team, this guy’s a great back, Dalvin Cook.”
Gruden also admitted that Oakland is a work in progress, but was encouraged with some of the things his team has done so far:
“We gotta get better as a team; we’re putting our team together. We’re playing a very good team back-to-back weeks. You could say the Chiefs, Vikings are good as teams as there are in football. And in spurts we hung in there and did some good things. But if we can’t convert a fourth down and a half-a-yard, you know we fail to make a play in the passing game at the end of the half that could’ve been a huge play, and we lose the turnover battle and fall behind. That’s not good.”
The Silver and Black have several issues to address in every phase of the game as they have yet to find any rhythm to start the 2019 NFL season. Players like Darren Waller and Tyrell Williams have been bright spots on the team, but they cannot solve the offense’s tendency to stall out in the middle of games.
With seemingly more questions than answers at the early junction of the season, the Raiders already find themselves battling uphill to get back into playoff contention. Hopefully, they have a better showing when they take on the Indianapolis Colts in Week 4.
