Raiders Must Get Back on Track in a Critical Aspect of the Game

While the Las Vegas Raiders have played a relatively clean brand of football under Coach Antonio Pierce, they still have room for improvement in an important area.

Oct 6, 2024; Denver, Colorado, USA; Las Vegas Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce during the second quarter against the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images / Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

The Las Vegas Raiders have been penalized 28 times this season.

This is tied for the 10th-fewest in the National Football League. However, lately, the penalties have been more than normal for the Raiders. More than half of the team’s penalties this season have come in the last two games. Over the last two games, the Raiders have been penalized 17 times for 128 yards and most of those penalties have come at the most inopportune times. 

Against the Denver Broncos, penalties were the icing on the cake of what was already a bad day. Raiders coach Antonio Pierce took accountability for the team’s uncharacteristic amount of penalties over the last couple of weeks. He noted that the team must clean up the penalties and that he and the coaching staff plan to emphasize playing a clean game moving forward.

"Those are pre-snap penalties,” Pierce said. “We had 11. Six of them were pre-snap or post-snap penalties. That's focus, that's attention to detail. And there was two on coaches, right? We had 12 men on the field, that's embarrassing. Embarrassing on me, embarrassing our defensive staff, and we’ve cleaned that up." 

The Raiders already have plenty of things working against them this season, mainly injuries. This is in addition to them still figuring out life with a new offensive coordinator and scheme. The last thing the Raiders can afford to do is give yards and points to the opposing team. They are simply not healthy enough to overcome turnovers, poor play and penalties. Even if they were healthier, penalties and turnovers would still doom them, as they would any team. 

Over the final games of last season, the Raiders were one of the least penalized teams in the NFL. This helped keep them in nearly every game they played in last season. This season, they were well on their way to again being one of the least-penalized teams in the league. However, they must get back to playing clean football as another penalty-filled game could lead to a second loss in a row for the Silver and Black. 

Luckily for the Raiders, they return home to face the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are tied for the 10th-most penalties in the league this season. The Raiders are shorthanded again this week, they must do all they can to give themselves the best chance to win. That means cutting down on the penalties. 

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