Raiders vs. Redskins: Highlights, game tracker and more

The Oakland Raiders faced the Washington Redskins on Sunday, Sept. 24 in Week 3 of the 2017 NFL season. Here are the highlights from the game.

All eyes were on the Oakland Raiders and Washington Redskins as the two teams collided for a primetime game on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. The Raiders took their 2-0 record on the road and traveled across the country to face the 1-1 Redskins. Oakland had looked the more impressive of the two teams previously, but a cross-country trip is a great equalizer.

That equalizer seemingly had the Raiders all kinds of out of sorts right from the get-go. Oakland got the ball to start the game and began with a handoff to Marshawn Lynch. On the next play, though, Derek Carr dropped back on an odd looking play and let a deep ball fly. It wasn’t a particularly great ball and safety Montae Nicholson came up and made the interception.

Kirk Cousins, who’d looked a shell of himself in Weeks 1 and 2, took the field. Whatever was wrong with him in the first two games for the Redskins was seemingly a distant memory. With the running game working, Cousins was surgical in a drive right down the field. He then found the speedy Chris Thompson for a 22-yard score.

Both teams were held silent for the rest of the first quarter on offense, defense playing the main role in the matchup over that stretch. Early in the second quarter, though, Carr again tried another deep ball and was again picked off, this time by Kendall Fuller. And just like off the previous one, the Redskins capitalized as they marched down the field, scoring on a Vernon Davis touchdown reception. That gave Washington the 14-0 lead, which they took into the half.

If you were hoping for things to improve after the break, it was nothing but bad news for you. Washington got the ball to start the half and continued to just mow through the Oakland defense, scoring when Cousins found Josh Doctson deep down the right sideline and the wideout out-muscled David Amerson for the grab and then went for the score.

The Raiders seemed to have breaks start going their way, though and hope for a comeback started to creep up. First, Washington missed a field goal. When Oakland got the ball back, they went three-and-out — but the Skins muffed the punt and lost the football. That allowed Carr to find Jared Cook and get the Raiders on the board, finally.

However, the Redskins answered with another field goal and just controlled the game throughout. Thompson continued to be mighty, consistently breaking off chunks of yardage. Meanwhile, Cousins was just as goo and the defense just shut down anything Oakland wanted to do. Oakland and Washington each added another field goal, but it was all Redskins at home to pick up a big win as both teams moved to 2-1.

Highlights

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It was shocking to see this performance from both teams really. No one expected this game from either side, but it certainly changes the way we’ll think about both the Redskins and Raiders moving forward.