Raiders Week 6 Slay and Bomb

A Week 6 slay and bomb article featuring a Las Vegas Raiders winning streak that involves the defense coming up clutch in back-to-back weeks? That is the reality we live in.

For the first time since weeks 9-11 of the 2022 season, the Raiders have a winning streak. It might only be two, but some of the performances involved have done enough to inspire confidence in some members of Raider Nation.

Before the season, absolutely nobody could’ve thought that this Raiders defense would be the reason why they’ve won three games, but here we are. The 21-17 win over the former evil empire, the New England Patriots, allowed former Patriots offensive coordinator and current Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels to move to 3-0 in his career against Patriots legendary head coach Bill Belichick.

After spending $102 million on the offense in addition to numerous draft picks, the Raiders offense still has struggled. Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo once again went down with an injury to end the first half, and missed the rest of the game. 37-year-old backup quarterback Brian Hoyer played the entire second half. Aside from one bomb to Tre Tucker, however, the offense still looked miserable and only managed 6 points.

Today however marked another milestone. For the first time in the 2023 season, the Las Vegas Raiders scored 20+ points in a game after Maxx Crosby sacked Patriots quarterback Mac Jones in the endzone for a game-clinching safety. I had predicted they would win by a final score of 17-10, not thinking they would break the 20-point wall. Pop the champagne bottles and start the parade down the Strip, let’s get into the Week 6 slay and bomb performances.

Slay

Tre’von Moehrig

Raiders safety Tre’von Moehrig had a slay game against the Patriots. He’s had two interceptions in the last three games and Raider Nation had to be ecstatic to see him ball out against New England.

The interception by Moehrig was the result of Mac Jones attempting to make a throw on the run. He threw the pass straight to Moehrig, who happened to be at the right place at the right time. Unlike Raiders cornerback Marcus Peters who has unfortunately dropped multiple interceptions, Moehrig held on for the turnover.

It wasn’t just that play. Moehrig on multiple occasions this season has been all over the field making clutch, tough tackles in key situations. He’s been one of the best tacklers on the team this season, and even if the total tackle numbers don’t reflect it, the film does.

For Sunday’s game, Moehrig finished with 3 tackles and an interception. His play this season has been rather impressive, and hopefully, it can continue.

Michael Mayer

For the first time in his career, rookie tight end Michael Mayer went off with a slay performance. It didn’t result in any touchdowns, and the injury to quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo dented his production in the second half.

If Garoppolo hadn’t gotten injured, it’s very likely that Mayer would have continued his production. The Raiders’ offense shifted in the entire second half to more of a time-control offense, with the team running the ball considerably more often and only passing on 3rd downs. This limited his stats for the overall game, but Mayer looked like a monster when he got the ball.

Seeing the Raiders finally have a big game out of one of their draft picks this season was huge. Before this week, the Raiders had barely seen anything out of this draft class, unfortunately. The rookies had gotten playing time, but the team hadn’t seen any big performances until this week. Mayer did have a great catch and run against the Packers on Monday Night Football in Week 5 but wasn’t used much after as a pass catcher.

Mayer was guilty of being used as more of a blocking tight end and not really utilized in the passing game before this week, despite being a highly prolific receiving tight end at Notre Dame. Hopefully going forward, the team will use him in the passing game more often.

Mayer finished Sunday’s game with 5 catches for 75 yards and averaged 15 yards per catch.

Daniel Carlson

“Iceman” Daniel Carlson had a slay performance and was a key part in another Raiders victory. Like has done so many times in his career thus far, Carlson made multiple field goals to bail out stalled drives.

The Raiders finished a dismal 1/6 in the red zone in terms of converting touchdowns. Carlson ended Sunday’s game 4/4 in field goals as a result, with his longest field goal only being from 37 yards out.

The Raiders always have great special teams units, it’s part of the iconic reputation that the team has always had. Carlson is no exception to this. He showed why on Sunday that other than Baltimore’s Justin Tucker, he has the right to claim the title of best kicker in the NFL.

Bomb

Greg Van Roten

The Raiders offensive line stepped it up today in a way they hadn’t in previous weeks. However, Van Roten struggled for most of the game after reviewing the film.

There were the more obvious plays that caused him to be cited for a bomb performance. There was a draw play in the second half where Van Roten ran backward straight into running back Zamir White and tackled him, before tossing him straight forward for a game of two.

On several times this season, Van Roten has missed blocks that led to plays getting blown up in the backfield. He’s struggled in both pass blocking and run blocking equally this season. In the second half, it led to the Raiders almost exclusively running to the left side in the second half.

Everybody else on the offensive line stepped it up on Sunday, so as a result, Van Roten’s performance sort of stood out. The Raiders need better production out of that position. Your offense can’t be as effective if the offensive line collapses. If one brick in the wall isn’t there, the wall can’t be whole.

Red Zone Offense

It doesn’t matter who the head coach is. It doesn’t matter who is playing quarterback. The Raiders seem destined to have some massive struggles scoring touchdowns inside the red zone. It’s been an issue for quite a few seasons, and Sunday was certainly no exception.

The Raiders finished Sunday’s game only scoring 1 touchdown in 6 red zone appearances. That is in no way sustainable for a winning culture moving forward. The playcalling was extremely conservative, and the execution was sloppy as well. When the Raiders entered the red zone, they appeared more as though they simply wished to avoid turning the ball over rather than score points.

If the Raiders are going to win games against better teams on their schedule like Kansas City, they need to improve in the red zone and convert those opportunities into points. Instead of a 21-17 win, they could have won by a lot more. If you let better teams hang around, they are going to take advantage.

Second Half Letdown

It’s hard to highlight one player for this. But it felt like the Raiders spent the entire second half hoping they wouldn’t lose rather than wanting to finish off a weakened opponent for the decisive win.

A big part of that has to be the injury to Jimmy Garoppolo. When the Raiders starting quarterback went down, the team’s entire strategy shifted. They began to run the football, draining as much clock as possible. They only allowed Brian Hoyer to throw the football on third downs. The result was that the offense only put up 6 points in the second half.

The Raiders need to be able to put opponents away. They’re not going to be able to do that if they are constantly trying not to lose rather than playing for the win. There’s a balance in these things. You don’t want to go for it on 4th down on your own 20 as the Chargers like to do, but you don’t want to sit on a small lead in the entire second half praying that the game runs out of time and you can escape with a win.

The Raiders offense produced one big play in the second half, then simply waited out the clock and managed to hang on. Against a team that doesn’t have the 32nd-ranked scoring offense like New England has, that strategy isn’t going to work at all. We saw it last season when the Raiders set records for blowing 17-point leads with McDaniels as head coach.

The Raiders will be on the road for week 7 as they travel to the windy city to take on the Chicago Bears. At the time of this writing, it is unknown who will be at quarterback. Jimmy G left Sunday’s game with a back injury and actually had to be hospitalized. All 3 quarterbacks have played this season and massively struggled so it’ll be interesting to see who gets the nod next week.