Week 12 couldn’t have gone worse for the Raiders. Derek Carr turned the ball over four times. The defense gave up 43 points, although the offense gave them quite a few of those. The Raiders had 141 penalty yards and they made countless amounts of mistakes on both sides of the ball.
Due to their Week 12 loss and several other contenders winning in the AFC, the team’s playoff odds dropped dramatically. Entering the week, they sat at 70 percent. Now, they are at just 43 percent with a chance of those lowering after the Ravens take on the Steelers in Pittsburgh.
Luckily, the Raiders are still in a good position to make a run in the AFC. Two of the teams they need to pass in the standings (Dolphins, Colts) will travel to Las Vegas in December. But the Raiders have left themselves little wiggle room as they can probably only lose one more game, as long as it isn’t against Miami or Indianapolis.
The Raiders will get a chance to bounce back in Week 13 as they will take on the winless New York Jets. But as we can see from above, that game now has even more meaning. If they want to be viewed as a legit playoff contender in the AFC, they have to take care of business at MetLife Stadium. But after the way they performed this week in Atlanta, they can’t be trusted to win even against a winless team.
