AFC West report: COVID rears its ugly head again

Las Vegas Raiders

The Las Vegas Raiders had a weird week this week. They were supposed to face the Cleveland Browns on Saturday afternoon, but a huge COVID outbreak in the Browns’ organization forced the league to move the game to Monday. They drew the early slot which I loved (who doesn’t want to come home to football already on TV?), and proceeded to barely eke out a win against essentially a high school football team).

The Browns were without Baker Mayfield and Case Keenum, not to mention a host of other players, and still managed to slug it out in an ugly game. This one came down to the wire. In the final seconds of the game, Daniel Carlson hit a field goal to win the game 16-14.

https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1473096994835111948

Let’s not forget, however, why Carlson had to hit this field goal in the final seconds—of course, it was a Derek Carr interception.

At the end of the day, the Raiders technically stay alive in the playoff Wild Card hunt as they crawled back to .500 on the season. Look, this was not a win the Raiders should be proud of. The Browns could barely put together a team and the Raiders couldn’t do anything. They are a bad team and I can’t wait to see what moves are made this offseason to try and right the ship. In the meantime, just win baby (so your draft order drops).

A big injury for the Raiders came to Jonathan Abram who left the game and later was reported to have dislocated his shoulder. The extent of the injury is yet to be determined.

Next week, the Raiders get an afternoon divisional showdown with the Denver Broncos. Somehow the Broncos are also sitting at .500 so whichever team loses is likely staring at their final two games of the season. The Broncos are going to be without Teddy Bridgewater (most likely), but I’ll never count out a Derek Carr meltdown at the end of a season nor a weird Broncos win. Who even knows?