Raiders' defensive line talks woes against Buffalo Bills in 38-10 loss

Justin Churchill — College Football & NFL Trending News Writer

Sep 18, 2023 11:42 AM EDT

The Las Vegas Raiders got embarrassed, as you all probably already know. The Buffalo Bills were by far the better team, and it wasn't even close. This was a game the Raiders never had a chance of winning.

It starts up front on both sides of the ball, mainly the defense. The offensive line had its troubles, but the defensive line needed to be more present.

The defense, we knew, would be a problem this year, just like it has been every year, but not even the Raiders' best players played well. Even Maxx Crosby played an average game, which for him is not good.

There is so much they need to and have to improve.

"It's across the board," Crosby said after the loss when asked what the biggest area of improvement needs to be. "We've all got to get home. We all got to win. … We all got to be on the same page."

When he says get home, he means to the quarterback. They didn't do that once. They finished the game without a sack and only a few pressures.

The Bills offensive line dominated the matchup.

"We just got to do better and play better," Bilal Nichols said. "That's all. Point blank, period.

The Raiders' defensive game plan should have been different. They allowed Josh Allen to do virtually whatever he wanted to, and all of that stemmed from Allen not having any pressure on him.

Allen finished the game 31-37 with 274 yards passing and three passing touchdowns. That's one hell of a game, considering what Allen did last week against the New York Jets with four total turnovers.

Don't panic yet, though.

"Man, it's only Game 2," John Jenkins said. "We're going to continue working on building this bond, coming together, and just growing with each other. We've got good people, good teammates, and we're just going to keep doing what we're doing. It just hurts because we're competitors."

Yes, it is just Week 2, and the defense played really well in Week 1; however, this cannot happen again. They also had games like this last year, where they could do virtually nothing right. This year has to be different.

Luckily, they are still tied for first place in the division, as the Chiefs won on Sunday, and the other two AFC West teams lost. But they have to fix this before they play the Pittsburgh Steelers.

"We got to learn from it right now," Crosby said. "We got another good team coming into Vegas next week, and we got to be prepared and be at our best."

Head coach Josh McDaniels certainly wasn't happy either.