Las Vegas Raiders coach Antonio Pierce had poignant words for his team after their humiliating 36-22 defeat at the hands of the Carolina Panthers, considered to be one of the weakest teams in the league.
“We got our a– whooped,” Pierce said in the postgame press conference. “We gotta put pads on, gotta get on the sled. Same group that has, for the most part, all come back and same techniques and same coaches. There’s not a different scheme, so obviously you are gonna have to coach it better and be some hard asses on the guys, some guys that will take some rough coaching. Because that’s just, we didn’t see that coming on either side of the ball we thought we had the opportunity to run the ball but we didn’t, we didn’t do that at all. We tried and tried and tried.
“I would have booed us too. Offensively, defensively, we didn’t do good enough up front. It’s not good enough.”
The Raiders were riding high after their supposedly momentous win over the Baltimore Ravens. The Panthers seemed to be at their breaking point, benching 2023 first-round quarterback Bryce Young for veteran signal-caller Andy Dalton. It seemed like the Raiders would have a solid win at home.
The team came out flat, to put it mildly. The run game was poor again. The Raiders totaled 55 yards on the ground. Just 3.4 yards per attempt.
Quarterback Gardner Minshew took two ugly sacks and threw an interception. Edge rusher Maxx Crosby was taken out of the game entirely by the Panthers (and injury), just managing one solo tackle (three total) and a pass defended.
The Panthers ran all over the Raiders, led by Chuba Hubbard’s 114 yards and touchdown on 21 carries. Regarding the effort of his team, Pierce gave a somewhat ominous answer.
“I think as the game went on, I think there was definitely some individuals that made business decisions,” Pierce said. “And we will make business decisions going forward as well.”
The loss puts the Raiders at 1-2 for next week’s matchup against the Cleveland Browns. It will be their second consecutive home game.
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