NFL Power Rankings, Week 9: 49ers embarrass Panthers, Eagles shock Bills
By Dan Parzych
18. Oakland Raiders (17)
Down the road, the Oakland Raiders will most likely look at Sunday’s loss to the Houston Texans as a game they easily should have won since there were numerous opportunities for Jon Gruden’s squad to build up a large enough lead to earn the victory.
After earning two impressive wins in a row, the Raiders have now lost back-to-back tough games to the Texans and Green Bay Packers to drop their record to 3-4 on the season.
When seeing how things are playing out in the AFC, the last two weeks seemed like the perfect opportunities for Oakland to show they can in fact compete for one of the playoff spots in the conference.
This could still very well happen since there are two months left of action, but difficult losses like Sunday when the defense just couldn’t figure out a way to keep Deshaun Watson and DeAndre Hopkins in check are difficult to watch.
With their next three games at home, maybe the Raiders can figure out a way to bounce back to help continue making things interesting in the AFC West race with the Kansas City Chiefs.
The potential certainly seems to be there for Oakland, but they just have to figure out a way to earn the tough wins in situations like Week 8 in Houston.