TNF Annihilation: Raiders put up 63, woeful Chargers fire Staley, GM
The last two performances by the Las Vegas Raiders, occurring within four days of each other, gives the phrase “feast or famine” a uniquely NFL twist.
The Silver and Black converted five Chargers turnovers into 35 points. and quarterback Aidan O’Connell passed for four first-half touchdown passes as the host Raiders smashed their longtime division rival into a powdery blue pulp, 63-21.
Update: Chargers fire head coach, general manager
In so doing, the Raiders, who threw up a goose egg on the scoreboard Sunday against visiting Minnesota, became the first team in NFL history to score 42 points after being shut out the week before — and they hit that 42-point mark in the first half! The 63 points is a Raiders team record for points scored in a game.
Famine and feast. Or as interim head coach Antonio Pierce and new Vegas offensive coordinator Bo Hardegree could technically say (but not with a straight face): “Our team is averaging 31.5 points over our last two home games.”
The Raiders scored touchdowns the first three times they had the ball, hitting blackjack and taking a 21-0 lead late in the first quarter. Two of the three scores were set up by Chargers turnovers, including a strip-sack of LA quarterback Easton Stick, replacing the injured Justin Herbert, which the Raiders converted into a 14-0 lead when O’Connell hit rookie wide receiver Tre Tucker on a 30-yard touchdown strike.
Los Angeles fumbled again on its next drive, and O’Connell’s 22-yard toss to a diving Jakobi Meyers put the Raiders up by three touchdowns.
“This was just a really bad game in the NFL,” LA head coach Brandon Staley said postgame, in the understatement of the year. “Nothing goes right. Everything goes wrong.”
Everything kept going wrong for Staley’s squad when the teams changed directions for the second period. Well not entirely true — the Chargers’ defense did force back-to-back punts, but on the second punt return, LA’s Derius Davis fumbled deep in his own territory. Vegas made it 28-0 on an 11-yard TD catch by rookie tight end Michael Mayer, and O’Connell later pitched his fourth TD pass of the first half, his second to Tucker, on a 20-yard throw.
The score at the half: 42-0.
“If this were Pop Warner,” lead announcer Al Michaels jabbed rhetorically at one stage, “they’d stop the game, right?”
LA did arrest the momentum but for a moment when receiver Joshua Palmer got behind the Raiders’ secondary and hauled in a 79-yard TD pass in the third quarter. Otherwise, inertia refused to set in; the onslaught continued, adding more crimson to the Chargers’ collective embarrassment.
Vegas’ John Jenkins, as the clock expired to end the third, scooped the Chargers’ fourth fumble of the game and rambled in from 44 yards to make it 56-7. Then the cherry on top — defensive back Jack Jones timed up a Chargers' bubble screen, stepped in front of the intended receiver and went 16 yards with the Stick pass for, mercifully, the Raiders’ final score of the night.
The Chargers would get two late TDs in a garbage time associated with a sanitation strike. Maybe the 21 points looks better, cosmetically, but to quote Hank Stram, the legendary Kansas City coach from the AFL’s golden era, the two TDs were “like putting silk stockings on a sow.”
Given that 63 points were scored, the team and individual offensive numbers for Vegas were surprisingly subdued. But that’s what five turnovers, short fields and defensive touchdowns off those giveaways can do to your offensive production. O’Connell’s four TD passes did not account for all of the Raiders’ scoring throws; Meyers threw a fifth to fellow WR Davante Adams, who led Vegas with 103 receiving yards.
The Raiders (6-8) keep their playoffs hopes alive and O’Connell his job for another game. Vegas travels to Kansas City for a huge Xmas-day game (1:00 p.m. ET). The Chargers (5-9) looked like a potential Super Bowl contender heading into the 2023 regular season. They host the Bills next Saturday.
Whether Brandon Staley leads the Chargers out onto the field remains to be seen.