Three points from first-and-goal at the 2 sinks the Raiders in a 33-30 loss to Buffalo

The Raiders outgained Buffalo 378 to 345, won the third down battle comfortably, and lost 33-30. That is the sort of box score people hand around afterward as proof of bad luck. It was not bad luck. Las Vegas had first-and-goal at the Buffalo 2 to open the fourth quarter and took three points off it, then had the ball at its own 18 down seven with 4:36 left and threw three straight incompletions. Buffalo did the ordinary things at the moments that settle games. The Raiders did not.

The turning point was the goal line. The third quarter ended with Kirk Cousins hitting Brock Bowers for 15 to the Buffalo 2. Then Mike Washington Jr. up the middle for one, to the 1. Second-and-goal, Ashton Jeanty up the middle for minus-3, Greg Gaines in the backfield before the handoff settled. Third-and-goal from the 4, Cousins incomplete for Cody White. Matt Gay from 23 with 13:32 to play, and a fifteen-play, seventy-yard drive that ate 7:50 of a game the Raiders were losing produced three points instead of seven. The final margin was three.

The second came with the score tied at 23. Third-and-3 at the Las Vegas 29, 4:56 on the clock, and Josh Allen threw a simple ball to the left flat where James Cook stood alone, nobody within fifteen yards. Cook ran it to the 3 and scored on the next snap.

Offense

The plan was to throw and to get the ball out fast, and on that narrow measure it worked. Cousins was not sacked once on 41 dropbacks. He finished 23 of 41 for 313 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, a rating of 86.7, and the Raiders averaged 6.2 yards a play to Buffalo's 5.4. Seven of twelve on third down, four plays of twenty yards or more, every one of them a pass.

The problem is everything inside the 20. Two of five red zone trips became touchdowns. Las Vegas reached the Buffalo 13 in the second quarter and settled for a 35-yard field goal after a Tyler Linderbaum false start turned fourth-and-1 into fourth-and-5. It reached the 2 in the fourth and settled again. Caleb Rogers was flagged for holding on second-and-2 at the Buffalo 47 in the third, erasing an eight-yard completion and turning that series into a punt.

The run game is now a genuine problem rather than a soft spot. Twenty carries, 65 yards, 3.3 a rush. Jeanty had ten carries for 22 yards and a long of 8, his only productive moment the one-yard touchdown in the first quarter. Washington was the better back, nine carries for 43 and an 18-yarder that set up the tying touchdown drive. When a team cannot gain two yards on the ground in three tries, the play sheet shrinks to a list of throws, and Buffalo knew it.

Tre Tucker was the best Raider on the field: five catches, 97 yards, the 11-yard touchdown that tied it at 23 and the 44-yarder with 1:32 left. Michael Mayer had a career day, seven catches for 95 yards including a 28-yarder on third-and-13. Bowers caught four of nine targets for 70. The interception, on second-and-12 from the Las Vegas 29 early in the third, was a throw over the middle for Mayer that Dorian Williams took at the 32, and Buffalo scored a touchdown six plays later.

Defense

Buffalo scored on seven of its ten possessions. The 345 yards allowed looks respectable and means nothing next to that. There were no takeaways, now the defining fact of this three-game stretch.

Two sacks, both useful. Quay Walker got Allen on third-and-3 at the Las Vegas 21 in the first quarter and held Buffalo to a field goal on a drive that began at the Buffalo 44. Kwity Paye dropped him for eight on third-and-9 with 1:54 left in the half, forcing the punt that set up Gay's tying kick at the gun. Beyond that the pressure was theoretical. Allen went 23 of 33 for 255 with two scores and no interceptions, a 112.6 rating, and Maxx Crosby finished with five tackles, a tackle for loss, two quarterback hits and no sack.

Cook was the difference: 22 carries for 95 yards and the go-ahead touchdown, plus three catches for 58. Dalton Kincaid caught seven of eight targets for 38 yards, almost all underneath, and the Raiders never made Buffalo stop.

Two penalties built Buffalo's 23-13 lead. Treydan Stukes was called for defensive holding on third-and-9 at the Las Vegas 31, wiping out an incompletion. Two plays later Hezekiah Masses drew pass interference on second-and-11 at the 27, moving the ball to the 14. Buffalo scored four plays after that. Stukes otherwise had a strong afternoon with nine tackles and a breakup, as did Nakobe Dean with twelve tackles and Jeremy Chinn with ten, nine solo. Darien Porter broke up a throw to Keon Coleman inside the last three minutes. The unit tackled well in space and lost on the plays that counted.

Special teams

The kicking was excellent and almost beside the point. Gay went 3 for 3 on field goals and 3 for 3 on extra points. AJ Cole punted three times for a 55.3 average, long of 57, one inside the 20. Dareke Young returned six kickoffs for 150 yards and Dylan Laube added two for 54, the second a 29-yarder to the Las Vegas 34 that made the final touchdown possible.

The coverage and the discipline were not. Buffalo's average starting position was its own 37.8, Las Vegas its own 26.8. Ray Davis returned the opening kickoff 40 yards and Gay made the tackle. Greg Dortch added 37 punt return yards on three tries.

Then the sequence that decided the game. Trailing 30-23 with 4:43 left, Laube brought the kickoff out 25 yards to the Las Vegas 28 and Segun Olubi was flagged for holding, putting the offense on the 18. Three incompletions later Cole punted 57 yards to the Buffalo 25, Dortch returned it eleven, and Olubi was flagged again, this time for a face mask. Buffalo took over at the Las Vegas 49 rather than its own 36, and eight plays later Tyler Bass kicked the 38-yarder that made it a two-score game. One player, two penalties, three points.

Coaching

Klint Kubiak's offense is built around tight ends and timing, and it produced 30 points against a 5-1 team. That is not nothing. The in-game choices did not help.

The challenge is the one to come back to. With eight seconds left in the third, second-and-10 at the Buffalo 17, Las Vegas challenged an incompletion to Tucker, lost, and lost the first timeout with it. The other two went at 2:36 and 2:32 trying to preserve clock on Buffalo's last field goal drive. When the Raiders got the ball back at 1:56 they had none, which is why the 44-yard touchdown had to be followed by an onside kick rather than a defensive stand. They scored in 24 seconds. A timeout in that pocket was worth more than fifteen yards of field position in the third quarter.

Kicking on fourth-and-goal from the 4 at 13:32, down 23-13, was defensible, since it made the game one score. Handing Jeanty the ball at the 1 behind a line that had not moved anyone all day was harder to defend.

The larger issue is the start of the second half. At 13-13 the Raiders ran three plays for zero yards and punted, then went minus-2 and threw the interception. Buffalo turned those two possessions into ten points. A team does not come out of the locker room tied and give away ten points in six minutes if it is ready to play. Credit is owed for the response, a 15-play drive and then a 91-yard touchdown march to tie it, but the hole was self-dug.

What it means

Las Vegas is 3-3 and has lost three straight after opening 3-0. Kansas City is 5-0 and Denver is 4-2, so the division is already a problem rather than a question. The Raiders are 1-2 at home.

Two things have shown up three weeks running. The defense has one takeaway in those games after forcing nine in the first three, so a unit that was winning games on turnovers in September is now asking the offense to outscore people. And the run game has produced 175 yards on 64 carries over the streak, 2.7 a rush, which is why the red zone keeps turning into field goal attempts. Four of ten red zone trips in those three weeks have become touchdowns.

What is next

The Rams come to Allegiant next Sunday, October 25, at 2-4 after losing 18-16 to Arizona. The question to answer by then is whether this team can score a touchdown from inside the 5 without needing a perfect throw. Six weeks in it cannot, and no amount of yardage between the 20s fixes that.