Two fourth-quarter strip sacks turn the game and the Raiders leave New Orleans 35-27 winners at 3-0

New Orleans had the better afternoon for about fifty minutes and lost anyway. The Saints outgained the Raiders 381 yards to 340, held the ball for 32:28, converted nine of fifteen third downs and scored a touchdown on all four of their red zone trips. They also put the football on the ground three times and threw it to the wrong team once. Four turnovers, all of them in the second half, and the Raiders left the Superdome with a 35-27 win and a 3-0 record.

Las Vegas led 16-13 at the half, then came out of the locker room and went three plays and five yards. New Orleans answered with an 87-yard drive, and on the ensuing kickoff Dylan Laube returned it 28 yards and had the ball knocked loose by Anfernee Jennings, with Jordan Howden recovering at the Raiders 32. Two plays later Tyler Shough found Noah Fant for 16 yards and a 27-16 lead with 5:46 on the third-quarter clock. ESPN's win probability had the Raiders at about 11 percent right there.

The turn came on third and four at the Raiders 29 with 13:04 left in the fourth. New Orleans was in field goal range, two scores up, four yards from making the rest of the afternoon a formality. Malcolm Koonce came off the edge, dropped Shough for a ten-yard loss and knocked the ball out; Maxx Crosby fell on it at the Raiders 45. Las Vegas went 55 yards in six plays, Kirk Cousins hit Cody White from four yards out, and after a failed two-point try the Raiders led 28-27. On the next possession Shough threw to the flat on third and six and Hezekiah Masses took it 35 yards to the New Orleans 8, coughing it up at the end but with Adam Butler recovering at the 4. Three plays later Brock Bowers caught the touchdown that made it 35-27. Nineteen unanswered points, fourteen off two giveaways inside four minutes.

Offense

The plan was plain enough and it was the right plan: get Bowers back on the field and throw at him, keep Cousins on schedule, let Ashton Jeanty grind at the middle. Two of those three worked.

Cousins finished 22 of 33 for 248 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions and a 119.3 rating, the cleanest game he has played this season. The Raiders averaged 5.4 yards a play and went seven of twelve on third down, a good number in a building that loud. What they did not do was finish: three of six in the red zone, with Matt Gay coming on for 41, 37 and 25 yards. Eleven points from the kicker in a game decided by eight is not a compliment.

Bowers, in his first game of the season, had ten catches for 116 yards and a touchdown on thirteen targets. He was the offense. His 20-yard catch on third and four at the Raiders 35 with 4:22 left in the third started the drive that got Las Vegas back within five. Tre Tucker added four for 43, Michael Mayer three for 32 and a second-quarter touchdown, and White caught one ball all day and it was the one that put the Raiders ahead.

The run game is a problem and pretending otherwise would be silly. Take away Mike Washington Jr.'s 36-yard touchdown, originally ruled short of the goal line and reversed on a Las Vegas challenge, and the Raiders ran 26 times for 77 yards. Jeanty carried 19 times for 56, which is 2.9 a rush, after 2.3 against the Chargers. He is at 206 yards on 63 carries for the season with no rushing touchdown. He is not the whole problem: the Raiders gave up three sacks for 21 yards, and Chase Young beat the protection twice, once stripping Cousins on third and five at the Raiders 49 with 1:48 left, a fumble Connor Heyward was alert enough to recover.

Defense

Two sacks does not sound like a pass rush. Both ended a New Orleans possession and both came out as turnovers, which is what pressure is for. Koonce had the one that changed the game and finished with three tackles, a tackle for loss and three quarterback hits. Jeremy Chinn had the one that ended it, a strip sack on fourth and one at the Raiders 20 with 2:21 left, recovered by Taron Johnson. Crosby did not register a sack and was still all over it, with two quarterback hits, the forced fumble on Chinn's sack, the recovery on Koonce's, and the hurry credited on Masses' interception. Nakobe Dean led the team with twelve tackles and knocked the last one loose from Juwan Johnson at the New Orleans 41 with 53 seconds left, Eric Stokes recovering.

That is the good half of the ledger. The other half is that Shough went 29 of 42 for 255 yards and four touchdowns, and every one of the four went to a tight end. Juwan Johnson caught eight for 53 with two scores, Fant four for 33 with two more. The middle of the field was open on third down and open again inside the ten, and the linebacker and safety coverage on those routes never got sorted out. New Orleans ran for 148 yards at 5.3 a carry with Travis Etienne Jr. and Alvin Kamara splitting it, and Shough's 36-yard scramble in the second quarter came with nobody accounting for him. Nine of fifteen on third down and four of four in the red zone is a bad day no matter what the turnover column says.

Chris Olave got nine catches for 107 yards on thirteen targets and did not reach the end zone, which is the coverage result worth putting a name to. Taron Johnson had eight tackles, a pass defensed and a fumble recovery and was around most of those throws. Chinn's illegal contact at 1:38 also wiped out an interception by Tonka Hemingway, the sort of thing that would have mattered a great deal in a closer finish.

Special teams

One unit both won a point and nearly lost the game. Thomas Booker blocked Daniel Carlson's extra point in the first quarter, and in a game that ended eight apart that point was real. Gay was three for three on field goals and two for two on kicks after touchdowns. AJ Cole punted three times for a 49.0 average with a 62-yarder and one inside the 20, and Dareke Young averaged 27.5 on two kick returns with a long of 32.

Against that, Laube's fumble at the Raiders 32 handed New Orleans a touchdown two plays later and turned a four-point game into an eleven-point game. Gay also put a kickoff out of bounds at 3:20 of the third, giving the Saints the ball at their own 40 when Las Vegas could least afford the free yardage.

Coaching

The halftime lead was 16-13 and the team did not come out of the tunnel ready. Three plays, five yards, punt, and then an 87-yard drive allowed. Fourteen points conceded in that quarter is the part of the game Pete Carroll will want back.

The in-game decisions were a mixed set. The challenge of Washington's run at the New Orleans 36 was a good one and turned a first and goal at the 1 into six points. Going for two while down 27-22 is defensible arithmetic. Going for two again at 28-27 with 9:21 left, when a kick makes it a four-point lead, is harder to justify, and it failed on a sack. The timeout at fourth and one with 2:21 left was well spent: the defense came out of it organized, and Chinn came free.

What the fourth quarter showed is that nobody on the sideline came apart at 11 percent. That is worth something, and it is not the same thing as a well-coached first forty minutes.

What it means

Las Vegas is 3-0 and 2-0 on the road. What has now shown up three weeks running is the takeaway: two against Miami, three at the Chargers, four here, a plus-five turnover margin on the season. That is the identity of this team at the moment, and it is a real skill when the rush is generating strip sacks rather than waiting on bad throws.

Two other things are showing up three weeks running, and neither is comfortable. The run game does not work: Jeanty under 3.0 a carry in each of the last two. And the defense has given up more yards every week, 259 to Miami, 310 to the Chargers, 381 here. Win the turnover battle by three and you can absorb 381 yards. Break even and you cannot.

What is next

Kansas City at Allegiant Stadium on Sunday, October 4. The question the Raiders have to answer by then is whether they can run the football, because the Chiefs are the last opponent you want to face needing four turnovers to stay in a game.