Penalties and missed opportunities doom Raiders in playoff-eliminating 23-20 loss at Indianapolis

Updated Dec. 31, 2023 7:03 p.m. ET

Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Interim coach Antonio Pierce has guided the Las Vegas Raiders through nearly every conceivable scenario this season.

From a sluggish start to a late playoff push or an embarrassing shutout to a 63-point scoring outburst in just a matter of days, this first-time head coach has seen one common theme from his players. They fight like Raiders and he intends to fight with them, no matter the circumstances.

So even after another mistake-prone, uneven performance Sunday sealed Las Vegas' postseason fate, Pierce acknowledged the goal is simple: Corrections need to be made before next week's season finale against longtime rival Denver.

“It’s very difficult when the Raiders play the Raiders, and we did that on both sides of the ball,” Pierce said after the 23-20 loss. "We had opportunities on third-and-1 and fourth-and-1 to keep drives alive. We had opportunities to get (the Colts) off the field, and we didn’t do enough of that.”

Instead, after two straight wins put them briefly in the playoff discussion, the Raiders struggles returned.

Three false start penalties prevented rookie quarterback Aidan O'Connell from getting his teammates into the end zone more than once in the first 59 minutes.

O'Connell finished 30 of 47 with 299 yards and two TDs though nearly half of his total numbers came courtesy of Davante Adams, who caught 13 of 21 passes thrown his direction. He also finished with 126 yards and both TDs.

Clearly, that wasn't good enough.

“We needed a faster start,” said O’Connell, the former Purdue star. “It’s the NFL. You can’t rely on momentum from week to week. You can’t look ahead, and you can’t look back. Every play, every series, and every game has enough of its own and you’ve got to lock in.”

But there was plenty of blame to go around for this loss — and this season's continual problems.

Defensively, Las Vegas (7-9) allowed the Colts to run for 4.6 yards per carry, resulting in a time of possession disparity of nearly 7 1/2 minutes. They also blew the coverage on third-and-1 when Gardner Minshew threw a 58-yard TD pass to Alec Pierce for a 14-3 lead in the second quarter.

And cornerback Jack Jones extended a late Colts drive with two miscues — a pass interference call on third-and-8 with a throw headed out of bounds and an offside call that negated a field goal that bounced off the right goal post. Matt Gay delivered on his second chance, making the 45-yarder to give Indy a 23-13 lead with 3:11 to play.

“Obviously something happened for them to make the call,” Pierce said, referring to the offside penalty before discussing the other call. "The official didn’t think the ball was too far out of bounds. He felt like he interfered while the ball was in the air. I don’t want to second-guess the officials.”

But Pierce also accepted some of the blame for what happened, specifically a poorly timed trick play on third-and-1 with the Raiders still trailing 14-3. It started as an end-around that turned into a backward pass to O'Connell who finally threw an incompletion near the Colts 43-yard line.

Las Vegas then took a delay of game penalty before punting.

“That’s certainly one you look back at and you can make better decisions in those situations,” Pierce said. “We’ll do that going forward.”

Pierce has one more chance to convince Raiders owner Mark Davis to keep him as coach in 2024. If he gets things cleaned up and finishes with three wins in the Raiders' last four games of his audition, he just might.

But Pierce knows it's his responsibility to finish the job.

"You can’t point fingers at players,” Pierce said. "Obviously we’ve got to do a better job as coaches. It’s a focus thing: false starts, offside, that’s the Raiders beating themselves. That’s something that for seven games, we hadn’t done. But it came up today and it bit us.”

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