Las Vegas Raiders' First 4 Games: The good the Bad and the Ugly

1. First thoughts

The first four games of the Las Vegas Raiders' season are in the books, and the results are a mixed bag. Of course, a lot of that has to do with their blowout loss to The Patriots in week three, but also by how difficult it was for them to take down the Carolina Panthers and the New Orleans Saints in the opening games of the season.

As if that wasn t enough, they lost 30-23 against the Buffalo Bills and are now 0-2 in their last two games. That s a not a very good record, and while the Raiders are still 2-2 and sit second in their division behind the Chiefs, they haven t done well against upper-tier teams. The loss to the Bills was a good example of this, but so was losing to the Patriots, who seem to be a mid-tier team right now.

Now, with the first four weeks of play finally behind us, and twelve more weeks to go before we find out if the Raiders make the playoffs, here is the good, the bad and the ugly from their first couple of games.

2. The good: Derek Carr and Josh Jacobs

Whether critics want to admit it or not, the Raiders won their first two games of the regular season and did so with a consistent offense. Although Derek Carr has slowly lost a lot of his weapons over the last couple of weeks due to injury, the two wins at the beginning of the season show just how good this squad is when running on all cylinders.

One example of this is the fact that Derek Carr has completed 74% of his passes this season and is one of the only QB s in the league not to throw an interception yet. Another example of the Raiders white-hot offense is Joshua Jacobs, who might have run into trouble the last few games, but scored three touchdowns in their season opener versus the Panthers and has racked up over 250 yards this season.

3. The bad: enzone efficiency

Speaking of their offense, let s talk about the Raiders group of wide receivers and their inability to reach the endzone. Now, this doesn't mean that these players aren t doing their job at getting the ball down the field, but they seem to choke when it comes to the endzone.  In fact, the Raiders are currently 17th in RedZone efficiency, only putting points on the board 55% of the time.

A lot of that has to do with their wide receivers' inability to get open during key plays and certainly brings up questions about being playoff-ready. Then again, maybe the many injuries that have wrecked the offense played a role, but the backups haven t stepped up either. In all, the Raiders only have six receiving touchdowns, far removed from the Seahawks, who lead the league in receiving touchdowns with 16 .

4. The ugly: The defense

There is no easy way to say this, but the Raiders' defense seems to be absolute garbage this season. In fact, they are the 27th ranked defense in the entire league and have allowed an average of 30 points in their first four games. They also have allowed over 1000 yards in the first quarter of the season and are showing no signs of cutting down on their mistakes.

If nothing else, the Raiders are suffering a lot of injuries on defense as well, which is why some of this is understandable, but their defense is going to be what stops them from making the playoffs. It will also be what forces major changes in the coming games and maybe even puts the team in market to trade for another player.

5. Conclusion

The Raiders first two games of the season looked promising and put the team in range to have a decent season, but their defense is holding them back. Also, between being destroyed by the Patriots, 36-20, and losing their next game to Buffalo 30-23, it is obvious that the defense is unable to hang when up against quality opponents.

Hopefully, that will change as the season goes on and the players start to gel, which will be interesting to watch play out. Another thing that will be interesting to see is if their wide receivers are somehow able to be more efficient in the endzone and really allow the team to capitalize on Derek Carr s consistent throwing arm.