If a few of the Raiders' one-score outcomes were different in the 2022 season, the team's record would have been far better than 6-11.

In the 17 games the Raiders played, 13 of them were decided by one possession. Yes, one possession. And in those 13 games, nine went the way of the opponent. First, the organization threw long-time starter Derek Carr under the bus.

The Raiders blamed his inability to perform in big moments as the reason behind the close-game struggles. However, recently, Raiders general Manager Dave Ziegler finally admitted what many fans knew about this team and the reason why they couldn't win close games.

"At the end of the day, we weren’t good enough," Ziegler said on Bussin' With the Boys. "That’s the fact of the matter to win those games. And so, I think, when you look at them, a lot of games in football and a lot of our games this year, there’s three or four plays in each game that didn’t go our way.

"And so you start to dig in: ‘Why?’ Like, you have to start asking the question: ‘Why? Why didn’t they go that way?’ And again, some of them — there’s a lot of different reasons. I would say the one thing that I think is important to have to being able to — I’ll say it like this: I think the thing that’s important to win those close games is you have to have a group of 11 guys that, in those critical moments, can all execute their assignment and be synchronized with each other. And I think at times, we just, we weren’t able to do that. For whatever the reason is. There could be a lot of reasons to that.

"And so, I think to do that, we have to continue to find the pieces in the different rooms, whether it’s the linebacker room, whether it’s the defensive back room, the receiver room, whatever, find players that embody that and can do that in those critical moments. And I think if we can do that, I think, eventually we’ll end up turning the tides on those close games and those close games will be the games that we’ll win.”

With all that in mind, the Raiders' general manager will attempt to rebuild this team from the ground up. Currently, the Raiders don't know who will quarterback the team in 2023. Some believe it will be Aaron Rodgers. Others hold the belief that the quarterback for the job may already be on the team.

Either way, it is good to see Zeigler finally owning up to what many Raiders fans already knew — the team just wasn't good enough.

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Feature image via Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports