Oakland Raiders: Notes from Week 4 win over the Indianapolis Colts

The Oakland Raiders jumped out to a quick lead in Week 4 against the Indianapolis Colts and never looked back to notch their fourth road win in just over two seasons.

Remember last week after the Minnesota Vikings game when I said the Oakland Raiders would “probably lose” this game against the Indianapolis Colts? Remember in my game prediction article when I said the Raiders would lose 28-27 to the “slightly better” Colts team?

Well, we all have off days from time to time. But the good news is we still made money on the Raiders plus-seven, so it wasn’t all bad.

That was way too many points to be giving the Colts to try and cover with their defense being as depleted as it was with Darius Leonard and Malik Hooker out.

The Raiders, or as you Raiders fans would call them “the good guys,” looked absolutely sensational in Sunday’s 31-24 victory over the Colts in Indianapolis.

They did what they should’ve done last week in Minnesota in jumping out to an early lead and getting the edge over a team that’s not particularly built to play without the lead.

The Colts were without T.Y. Hilton this week, so Jacoby Brissett‘s number one target was nowhere on the field to be worried about.

That resulted in Brissett throwing for 265 yards, three touchdowns (two of which came in the fourth quarter in desperation time), and one interception while completing just 52.2% of his passes.

Derek Carr, on the other hand, had a solid opening 10-play drive that resulted in a red zone touchdown pass to Foster Moreau in the right corner of the end zone.

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That was followed shortly (after a Colts three-and-out) by a surprising Trevor Davis end-around play to the left that resulted in a 60-yard touchdown run that brought the game to 14-0 Raiders (the newly-acquired Trevor Davis at that).

That was the start the Raiders needed because from there, it was just catch-up time for Brissett and the Colts. And without Hilton in there, the Colts were severely undermanned in the passing department. Marlon Mack leaving the game with an injury did them no favors either.

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On the Raiders’ side, they had Josh Jacobs put forth a bounceback game from last week with 79 yards on the ground in 17 rushing attempts (188 net rushing yards for the team).

Another positive to take away was how the Raiders’ offensive line performed. They only let up one sack and kept Carr upright for the majority of the game.

That was a very respectable and underrated Colts defensive line to deal with (that also saw Jabaal Sheard return this week), and they handled their assignments much better than they did last week against the Vikings.

Trent Brown had to leave the game and his status for next week is up in the air; that guy has been battling through injuries like a warrior.

Finally, another big takeaway from this game was how well the Raiders played with their backs up against the wall — some may call that “resilience.”