Raiders' Pierce Reflects on Week 1 Positives

The Las Vegas Raiders had some positives in Week 1 that can be viewed as encouraging going into Week 2.

Sep 8, 2024; Inglewood, California, USA; Las Vegas Raiders coach Antonio Pierce reacts in the first half against the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The Las Vegas Raiders Week 1 matchup with the Los Angeles Chargers did not go as planned for the Silver and Black as they fell to the Bolts, 22-10.

The Raiders did not play well offensively. They had too many penalties and turnovers and could not execute when they needed to. All the things the Raiders did wrong cannot happen the rest of the way if Las Vegas wants to make it to the postseason this year.

On the other hand, the defense played well. It started attacking quickly and often applied pressure to Chargers quarterback Justin Hubert. The defense is once again the strong point of this Raiders team. It held it down as long as it could have to give the offense many chances to score but just ran out of juice in the last drive.

In the NFL, you cannot look back after a bad loss like this. The Raiders will have to make adjustments from Sunday's loss and look ahead to next week.

Even with some bad play from the Raiders on Sunday, some positives were evident.

"Defensively, I will start off, I mean, we got out of the gates very fast," Raiders coach Antonio Pierce said on Monday. "Just like we wanted to. Patrick called the game aggressively.

"We got after it. We hit the quarterback, we were affecting the quarterback, we pressured the quarterback. We were really good on third downs, in the red zone defense. Run defense 85 yards in the first half. We were playing the kind of game we wanted. You know full-court defense, half-court offense. ... Special teams, I thought we made some plays here. We did a good job on number 12. I thought we pinned him back... Offensively, you know, we will make an explosive play, and there will be a negative. ... And to be honest man, you want to get the run game going. ... The ability to run the ball, that is critical late in ball games.

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