Heading into early bye, Raiders have the look of a playoff team

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Monday, Oct. 12, 2020 | 2 a.m.

A lot can change in one week in the NFL, and Week 5 made a big difference for the Raiders.

After last week’s home loss to Buffalo, which dropped Las Vegas to 2-2 on the season, the FiveThirtyEight playoff projections gave the Raiders a 27 percent chance of making the postseason. That’s not a death sentence, but it didn’t exactly paint a rosy picture, either.

After Sunday’s stunning and cathartic 40-32 victory at Kansas City, however, the Raiders’ odds jumped up to an even 50 percent, lending credence to the fact that, in their first year in Las Vegas, the silver and black have the unmistakable look of a playoff team.

Why does the data like the Raiders’ chances? It’s a combination of their play on the field — the offense is legitimately fantastic — and the schedule, which looks like it is going to lighten up over the final two-thirds of the season.

The only teams left on the schedule that currently sport winning records are Tampa Bay (Week 7), Cleveland (Week 8), Kansas City (Week 11) and Indianapolis (Week 14). The rest of the slate contains some truly putrid squads, including two matchups apiece against the Chargers and the Broncos and single games against the Falcons, Jets and Dolphins. Those teams have currently combined for a record of 4-19.

If the Raiders take care of business against the teams they should beat, they should be able to secure a spot in the newly expanded seven-team playoff field.

The promising postseason odds seem to mesh with head coach Jon Gruden’s assessment of his team through five games.

“We think we have been playing pretty good, honestly,” Gruden said. “We played well in the opener. We played well against the Saints. Hell, we played pretty good at spurts in New England on a short week and I thought we played pretty good against Buffalo outside of some critical errors. We are getting better. We are finding ways to move the ball and we got some stops when we needed them, but we still have a long way to go.”

The Raiders, of course, haven’t played a postseason game since the tragic 2016 season, when a broken leg forced quarterback Derek Carr to watch from the sideline as his team was dismissed on Wild Card weekend. Carr seems determined to right that wrong and make his playoff debut this year, as he is playing the best football of his career while leading a Las Vegas offense that is among the best in the league.

Carr has completed better than 70 percent of his passes in all five games so far, and he has thrown for 1,442 yards and 11 touchdowns with just one interception; that puts him on pace for 4,614 yards, 35 touchdowns and three interceptions over a full season.

With Carr putting up career numbers, the Raiders are averaging 30.2 points per game, which should be plenty good enough to beat up on the bottom-dwellers that dot the remaining schedule.

Carr said the team’s improving health, especially getting Trent Brown back on the offensive line, has the offense firing at close to full capacity.

That bodes well for the playoff push that is to come over the next three months.

“We’re not to our fruition yet, but we’ve got a lot of guys back healthy,” Carr said. “Trent Brown, my goodness, having him back was awesome. A lot of guys have been playing that spot but anytime you can get a starter back on the offensive line it helps…All of those things put together allows us to push the ball down the field, allows for the play action game, allows us to do a lot of things and it’s definitely exciting.”

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.