There’s still one week before Halloween, but we already witnessed a scene from a horror movie. Under a gray sky, the dark faces came out ready to shed some Bronco blood. Raider Nation went from 0 to almost 60 in an afternoon of football. The Denver Broncos fell to 2-5 on the season after a 59-14 thumping by the Oakland Raiders.
If time is needed to heal all wounds, then start the stopwatch now and hope that enough time has passed before the Broncos play the San Francisco 49ers in London next week.
The Broncos have now lost three consecutive games. In the first fifteen and a half minutes of today’s game, the Raiders were on pace to score 120 points in the contest. A 38-0 lead a quarter and a half into the game moved the “boo” birds enough to voice their displeasure from the stands.
There isn’t a lot to say after this loss. Although physically present, the team was somewhere else, mentally. Did some of the team board the plane early to head to London? The Broncos allowed four sacks and 328 yards rushing, and turned the ball over three times. Darren McFadden found the endzone four times, three as a runner and once as a receiver. There was no good reason for the Raiders to worry about their quarterback situation on this day. Jason Campbell could be found under center, mostly handing the ball off, but also confidently throwing 12-for-20 for 204 yards and 2 touchdowns.
The Broncos played an In-com-plete game. Before you could finish a Bronco Brat, the Broncos were down 21-0 just six minutes into the first quarter. After Campbell led the Raiders to the endzone on the opening drive, Kyle Orton threw a pick-6, and on the following play, DeMaryius Thomas fumbled a reverse pitch which allowed the Raiders to score their third touchdown of the very long day that the Broncos had to endure.
An injured Brian Dawkins could be seen pacing the sidelines, towel in hand, trying to encourage the defense to come to life. His hard-hitting antics were certainly needed in the secondary.
The Broncos defense saw most of the action today with the Raiders’ offense holding on to the ball for 38:41. In the 21 minutes that the Broncos’ offense took the field, they had 165 passing yards and 75 rushing yards. Kyle Orton went 12-for-29 and 198 yards passing with 2 TDs and 1 INT. If there was any hope for any kind of comeback, it was when the Broncos scored their only two touchdowns of the game right before halftime and on their first drive of the second half. After that, it was back to business for the Tom Cable’s team.
It was, undoubtedly, the Cable show from the beginning. The lead character was Darren McFadden with Jason Campbell as his trusty sidekick. Oakland’s secondary played the role of the evil villain by allowing the Broncos’ leading receiver, Brandon Lloyd to just one catch for 46 meaningless yards. Jabar Gaffney was the leading receiver with 4 catches for 54 yards. The closing credits of this horror movie weren’t seen by many, but the fans that did stay till the end witnessed the entire Oakland team coming together and taking a proverbial bow after completing their third straight victory in Denver.
It truly was a day that saw The Return of the Living Dead. The one-time horrific Raiders proved that their team has turned a corner and the black and silver can haunt the best of the AFC West once again.
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