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Everything was going right for the Las Vegas Raiders in their home opener against the Arizona Cardinals. The offense and defense looked excellent and the team got off to a 20-0 lead at halftime. The fans, who were so hyped for this team after a big offseason, were pumped up and it looked like that hype was justified. However, the team’s penchant for blowing leads came back in dramatic fashion.
Despite heading into the fourth quarter with a 23-7 lead, the Raiders ended up losing 29-23 in overtime. The 20-point blown lead is the biggest in team history. Not the best way for new head coach Josh McDaniels to start his Raiders tenure. Fans were not pleased with the outcome and many of them threw items at Cardinals players as they celebrated the dramatic win.
One fan took things to another level when quarterback Kyler Murray went to go celebrate with some Arizona fans who made the trip to Las Vegas. An unknown Raiders fan seems to smack Murray in the face and it was caught on video.
Many have called for the fan to be banned from Allegiant Stadium for life. That will likely be the case if the Raiders are able to identify him.
Murray ‘Had to Take Over’
In the Cardinals’ opener, they got blown out by the Kansas City Chiefs. It appeared that the team was in for a nightmare season after the first half against the Raiders. Murray talked about the feelings the team had going into halftime.
“That feeling, going into the half where nothing is going right, we’ve felt that plenty of times since I’ve been here,” Murray said, via AZCardinals.com.
“It’s an ugly feeling. But the grit, the resiliency of this group … the issue with this group is never about playing hard. It’s about executing,” Murray added.
Arizona made Murray one of the highest-paid players in NFL history this offseason with a $230.5 million contract. They needed him to prove his worth and that’s exactly what he did in the second half. If it wasn’t for Murray, the Cardinals don’t come close to winning the game.
“I had to take over,” Murray said. “That was my mindset.”
Josh McDaniels Praises Cardinals
Josh McDaniels has to be feeling the heat after starting the season winless in two winnable games. Regardless, he had a lot of praise for the Cardinals after the game.
“Well, I’ll start by giving Kliff [Kingsbury] and his group a lot of credit,” McDaniels said. “They did a great job of hanging in there and just chipping away at the lead as the game wore on. They coached and played 60 minutes and then some a little bit better than we did. Made a few more plays than we did at the end. I thought we thought we got off to a good start, I thought we tried to play the game the right way out, ran out of gas little bit on defense and played a lot of plays in the second half. A big part of that was we really couldn’t establish much offensively in terms of rhythm in the third and fourth quarter, and kind of left our defense out there a little bit. We had opportunities, certainly, to win the game at the end. But they deserve a lot of credit. Obviously, they hung in there and they made a few more than we did.”
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