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Story by Alan Snel Photos by Hugh Byrne
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The Jaguars pulled a Raiders.
Jacksonville committed too many penalties and blew a fourth quarter lead to lose to the Las Vegas Raiders, 19-14, at Allegiant Stadium.
The fans may have been hoping for a Raiders loss so that the team could snag the overall number one pick in the 2025 Draft. But Raiders players like quarterback Aiden O’Connell and tight end Brock Bowers had other intentions.
Like breaking a ten-game losing streak.
With the win, the Raiders went from picking first to picking sixth. Both the Raiders and Jags each have won three of 15 games this season.
“Good to see all the smiling faces,” Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce said to start his postgame presser.
“A weight off our shoulders,” O’Connell said after the game.
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With a painful ten losses in a row for the Las Vegas Raiders entering Sunday’s game here in Vegas, it’s easy to soften the losing streak by thinking back to only a year and a month ago when the Raiders dismantled the New York Giants at Allegiant Stadium.
It was the first Sunday in November and it was Antonio Pierce’s first game as interim head coach after owner Mark Davis canned former HC Josh McDaniels on Halloween.
The Raiders players were so elated after defeating the moribund Giants, 30-6, they lit up cigars in their locker room and puffed away.
There was a win to celebrate.
But there was something else in the smoky air that day Nov. 5, 2023.
Hope.
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Andy Coronado always has hope for the Raiders.
He’s one of the many Raiders superfans who show up at Allegiant Stadium.
Coronado is easy to find.
He drives his Raider Bus 531 miles from Stockton, California. Though this week, he stayed at a motel in Las Vegas because he watched the Raiders’ sad 15-9 loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football here at Allegiant Stadium. No need to make the long roundtrip with another Raiders game six days later.
“My dogs have the TV clicker back in the motel room,” Coronado joked to LVSportsBiz.com before today’s Raiders-Jaguars game. He parks his bus in the stadium parking lot on the north side of the stadium, not too far from the venue’s main entrance and team store, the Raider Image.
Fans casually saunter over to Coronado’s bus and tailgate. Everyone is invited.
Inside the fix-domed stadium, Coronado sits in one of the corners near the field. He gets lot of TV cameos as Coronado is seen munching on a plastic leg of the opposition.
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The Raiders’ home-opener was an embarrassing 14-point loss to the Carolina Panthers and the Raiders have found a variety of ways to lose games, from throwing Pick-6s to committing badly-timed penalties.
The Raiders have twice out of 14 games, while Jacksonville arrived in Las Vegas with one more win.
There was so much promise after the Raiders won five of their nine games under Pierce in 2023 only to fall off the cliff in 2024 with ten straight losses.
Jacksonville jumped out to a 7-0 lead after one quarter.
The Raiders were driving, though, when the first quarter ended with the Jaguars up, 7-0.
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After Tank Bigsby scored a TD from the one yard line, the Raiders’ Alexander Mattison matched that with his own one-yard touchdown plunge.
The Raiders’ reliable placekicker, Daniel Carlson, botted a 49-yard field goal to give the Raiders a 10-7 lead in the second quarter.
Carlson booted another one, this time from 37 yards. And the Raiders led, 13-7.
Fans found great bargains on the secondary ticket market as ticketholders who were selling had no choice but to lower prices for a Raiders-Jaguars game.
And the usual fans were there, too.
Halftime: Raiders 13 Jacksonville 7
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Late in the third quarter, Carlson missed a 46-yard field goal kick.
It would come back to haunt the Raiders.
The Jags’ quarterback, Mac Jones, found a wide open Brian Thomas for 62 yards and the quarter ended with the Raiders trailing, 14-13.
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Amid the penalties and stalled drives was a gem of a play made by Raiders’ quarterback Aiden O’Connell. he escaped the clutches of a Jags defender and threw a pass while backpedaling to Ameer Abdullah on third down to keep the drive moving.
The Raiders’ record-breaking tight end Brock Bowers also made a few catches to et up Abdullah’ seven-yard TD run off guard and the Raiders bounced back to take a 19-14 advantage.
Midway through the fourth quarter Bowers secured his tenth and eleventh catches of the game on a drive that melted time off the clock.
A last-ditch drive by the Jaguars stalled and the Raiders had their third win of a very rough season.