Raiders Hold the Line, But Offense Falters in TNF Slugfest
November 7, 2025
Wow, if you survived this one, congratulations. Think hard on this, if it were mid June, would you have been happy to just have football to watch? This Thursday night matchup was a brutal one and left some fans feeling they lost some time of their life that they’ll never get back, but there were some positives to draw from it.
The Raiders came out and put a scoring drive together on just their second possession. Geno Smith was hitting Raheem Mostert, Tre Tucker and others. Jeanty chipped in with some key first down runs and eventually punched it into the endzone for an early 7-0 Las Vegas lead. We might have a ball game tonight! That would unfortunately be all the offense could muster on the evening. However, the story is how pedestrian the Raider defense made the mighty Broncos look, because they held Nix and company to just one touchdown that wouldn’t come until it was nearly halftime. In fact, Denver would only score three points after half that would come on a blocked punt on their own 12 yard line. The fact they held them to three speaks to the level the defense was playing at.
Perhaps it could be partially attributed to a divisional game taking place on a short week, but Nix was uncomfortable for most of the night. The Broncos came in riding a six game winning streak but it hasn’t been pretty as it required multiple comebacks in the fourth quarter against subpar teams like the Jets and Giants. The home crowd let them know about it too by raining boo birds on their team for a majority of the night. However, take no credit away from the silver and black. Bo Nix was held to a season low 150 yards passer rating of 54.2. Nix was feeling the pressure, running outside of the pocket and forcing some throws resulting in two interceptions by Kyu Blu Kelly. They went away from the run game for much of the contest, RJ Harvey only finished with 4 rushing attempts. Dobbins got a bit more work in the second half but Sean Payton clearly wanted this win to come from the arm of Bo Nix, and the Raiders were defending against it perfectly.
While the Broncos offense struggled, the defense ATE. They matched everything the Raiders were doing on defense and then some as they were able to sack Geno Smith six times. By the time the fourth quarter rolled around, Geno was clearly beaten up and the hits were taking a toll as he was limping up and down the field. The pressures led to takeaways resulting in an interception that became Geno’s 12th on the season which leads all passers on the year. Denver turned the heat up even further as the Raiders didn’t record a first down in the second half until we were under 10 minutes to go in the game (to go along with their first passing yard in the second half).
It may have been boring from an offensive perspective, but the defenses played their hearts out. With 22 penalties divided evenly between these teams, it was far from pretty and both have a lot to clean up. For the Raiders, I’m not sure, the defense played as well as you could ask and you still couldn’t put up even 3 more points to help them out. The issues with Geno Smith have been ongoing all season and we’ve gotta be close to seeing what the Raiders have in their backup Kenny Pickett. We’ve seen plenty of quarterbacks find a second life in their late twenties, heck, Geno was one of them! We need to know what we have, if anything, in what is currently on the roster before we run out of live reps. As for the Broncos, they may be the worst 8-2 team of all time. For now, they lead the AFC West. Should that hold, they have all the makings of a first round exit come playoff time.
Keith, Author
Keith runs youth flag football leagues by day, and by night he hosts the podcast and writes articles with the confidence of a man who’s been rushing quarterbacks since dial-up. A longtime flag football DE and lifelong Falcons fan, he’s no stranger to heartbreak and enjoys watching the bears get slaughtered each week. Equal parts coach, critic, and chaos, Keith calls it like he sees it… even if it hurts.
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