Raise your hand if you said turnovers would be what doomed the Raiders in the season opener against the Chargers. I’m not sure it was something I foresaw, but that’s just what happened.
Derek Carr put the ball in the hands of defense three times and put it on the ground two other times.
Despite Carr’s three interceptions, the Raiders found themselves with possession, and needing a touchdown to win it with just over three minutes remaining in the game.
Ultimately, it would not happen – that window closed on fourth down with Khalil Mack sacking Carr causing his second fumble. And the Chargers pulled out the 24-19 win. But even being in that position at all considering all the miscues and turnover up to that point had Davante Adams feeling pretty positive about things.
“I look at it as something that’s encouraging because we beat ourselves today,” said Adams. “That’s not to take anything away from that team over there, because that’s a really good team, they did a lot of good things today, but you turn the ball over the way that we did today and you still have the opportunity to go down and win says a lot about you as a team, fighting through adversity and still our defense did it in the second half, we just got to find a way to take care of the ball a little bit better and go down there and win. So, I look at it as something we can feed off of moving forward and try to keep it as positive as possible.”
Adams has reason to feel good personally. His introduction to the Raiders had him catch the first pass, three passes for 54 yards on the first drive alone, and finish with 10 catches for 141 yards and a touchdown.
That touchdown catch put the Raiders within five of the Chargers with 4:32 left in the game. They went for two to try and make it a three-point game, but even with two opportunities due to a penalty, both of Carr’s passes — one to Adams and the other to Hunter Renfrow — fell incomplete.
From there the defense stopped the Chargers offense with a three-and-out, thus giving the Raiders 3:30 to go 79 yards to win it.
A 12-yard connection with Adams would give them a first down. But two plays later, consecutive sacks on third and fourth down would put a stop to the Raiders chances of completing the comeback.
Those sacks to end the game were also the fifth and sixth of the game for the Raiders. Three by Mack, two by Joey Bosa, and one from Derwin James.
Sure, you can understand why DaVante Adams would see the positives in this game. After all, you’d usually expect three interceptions to have a team down a lot more than five points late.
But there’s also a lot of things that were just plain not surprising in the worst way. The porous offensive line, the Carr fumbles, and the once promising drives that died in the red zone. The interceptions just piled on top of that.
It’s just the first game, so we will find out soon enough whether these are indeed positive signs of things to come or more reason for concern.
