Getty Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard.
Even following a loss to the Kansas City Cheifs, Las Vegas Raiders fans were feeling good. They were 6-4, the schedule was getting easier and it looked like the playoffs were a real possibility. Well, the Raiders and their fan base crashed back to Earth on Sunday in the worst way imaginable. They got blown out by a 3-7 Atlanta Falcons team and looked really bad in the process.
Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard is one of the biggest Raiders fans around and he had a hard time watching the game.
Wtf are the Raiders doin man
The game took such a bad turn that Lillard swore off football for the rest of the season.
I’m taking the rest of this NFL season off.
Trail Blazers teammate CJ McCollum went out of his way to troll Lillard and the Raiders after the loss.
Lillard is likely feeling how a lot of Raider fans are right now. There have been numerous times over the last several years where it looked like the team was finally going to turn things around only to fall apart again and again. Lillard will be back if the Raiders turn things back around but it’s hard to blame him for jumping off the boat before it starts sinking.
One thing Lillard made clear was that he’s not changing his allegiance to the San Francisco 49ers.
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What Happened?
Even though nobody could’ve seen this debacle by the Raiders happening, fans would be lying if they didn’t at least think it was a possibility. The team did this exact same thing at the exact same point of the season last year. For whatever reason, this team has folded when they’re feeling good about themselves.
This game was an absolute punch in the mouth for the silver and black. Every team is entitled to a bad week but this was even worse. The Raiders need to bounce back or the playoffs will be out of reach before they know it.
Derek Carr Claims Raiders Had Bad Week of Practice
There’s plenty of blame to go around for the team’s loss. It’s clear that the team wasn’t ready to play. Quarterback Derek Carr revealed the team didn’t have their best week of practice.
“I still stand by what I said, it still feels different on this team,” Carr said after the game. “But our week of practice was not up to the standard that we have set. I haven’t felt this way [this season] where we got punched in the face. It just kept happening.”
Carr expanded on what was off about practice.
“You try and get guys going in practice and try and get yourself going and it just didn’t feel right,” Carr said. “I don’t know what the reason for that was, I don’t know why that happened. I think we’ve done a great job of flushing things win or loss and going to the next game. Coach does a great job of that. He makes sure we know every good thing about the next team that we’re going to play to make sure we’re ready to go. I don’t know if it was a hangover type effect. Maybe I don’t know. I’d have to study that. For me, I just know it wasn’t up to our standard so this week it better be.”
It’s one thing to get blown out by a great team, it’s another thing to get blown out by a losing team that was missing two of their best offensive pieces. The Raiders can’t afford to have bad weeks of practice. They need to fix things this week. How they bounce back against the New York Jets on Sunday could define their season.
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