DENVER -- A difficult week ended with a win Sunday for the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Raiders defeated the Denver Broncos 34-24 in their first game after Jon Gruden, their coach, resigned in the wake of the email scandal. This was also their first game playing with Rich Bisaccia, their interim coach.
It was also the first time Bisaccia, a veteran special teams coordinator, had ever worked as a coach at any level.
After Greg Olson, the offensive coordinator, took over from Gruden's playcalling duties. Derek Carr wrote his fourth 300+ passing yard game. Rich Gannon was the Raiders' MVP-winning quarterback in 2002. Henry Ruggs III threw three touchdown passes to Greg Olson for 97 yards. Josh Jacobs ran for 53 yards on 16 carries, and the elusive Kenyan Drake scored twice by air and ground.
The Raiders were able to force four turnovers defensively -- Tre'von Moehrig, Tre'von Facyson and Johnathan Abraham interceptions, as well as a fumble recovered from Denzel Perryman by Solomon Thomas -- and Maxx Crsby had three bags.
After such a long week, one could expect an emotional boost. It was not known if it would be positive, or negative. It was a positive result as the Raiders went 4-2 and ended their two-game losing streak.
