Raiders Beat Chargers to Claim Playoff Spot

Led by exhausting, slashing working from Josh Jacobs, who posted 132 yards and a landing, Las Vegas drove 46 yards into field-goal vary. In that sequence, Jacobs rushed for a 7-yard acquire, and the Chargers known as a timeout, stopping the clock, to substitute a personnel package deal. Before that second, the Raiders’ interim coach, Rich Bisaccia, stated his staff contemplated letting the clock drain to end with a tie. But the timeout modified their method.

“We were certainly talking about it on the sideline,” Bisaccia stated.

On third-and-4 from the Chargers’ 39-yard line, Jacobs rushed for 10 yards, organising Daniel Carlson’s 47-yard, walk-off discipline aim. As the ball sailed by means of the uprights, Raiders defensive finish Maxx Crosby threw his helmet and ran onto the sector in pleasure. Carr, who threw for 186 yards and two touchdowns, later pumped his palms as he walked off the sector and hurled a recreation ball into the group.

The Raiders’ win gave them a coveted slot within the postseason. They face a highway matchup in opposition to the fourth-seeded Cincinnati Bengals. But Las Vegas’s persistence, successful its remaining 4 video games to advance to the postseason beneath an interim coach and with a shell of its season-opening roster, exemplified the likelihood supplied by a stretched out schedule.

The 2021 season was once more dogged by coronavirus-related participant absences, which resulted in cobbled collectively lineups and sudden losses, and most of the league’s juggernauts — Patrick Mahomes’s flashy Kansas City offense, the Dallas Cowboys — suffered swoons that imperiled their standings. The added recreation gave these playoff-bound excessive seeds the chance to revert to type, maybe none a lot because the Raiders, who as late as mid-December had been beneath .500.

“Every single week you got to be ready to go to be at your best,” stated Crosby, who completed with six tackles and two sacks. His white arm sleeve and white pants had been plastered with grass stains from Allegiant Stadium’s floor. “I love it, there’s nothing else I would want,” he stated.

The playoff berth had appeared unlikely for the Raiders. The staff’s head coach, Jon Gruden, resigned in October after The New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported on racist and homophobic emails he despatched from 2011 to 2018 when he was an ESPN analyst. Weeks later, the staff launched Henry Ruggs III, a first-round draft decide in 2020, after the receiver crashed his sports activities automotive into the automobile of Tina Tintor, 23, killing her when her automotive burst into flames. Ruggs was charged with two felony counts of driving beneath the affect and two felony counts of reckless driving.

The staff additionally launched one other 2020 draft decide, cornerback Damon Arnette, in November after he brandished a gun on social media and threatened to kill somebody. Nate Hobbs, a cornerback, was additionally charged with driving beneath the affect, a misdemeanor, final week after he fell asleep in his automobile at a parking storage.