Raiders offense disappears again in loss to Browns

Vincent Bonsignore, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Nov 23, 2025

Published in Football

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LAS VEGAS — The Las Vegas Raiders offense continued to struggle Sunday in a 24-10 loss to the Cleveland Browns at Allegiant Stadium.

Quarterback Geno Smith was sacked 10 times, five in each half, as the Raiders lost their fifth straight game to fall to 2-9.

The Raiders finally scored their first touchdown, a 5-yard pass from Smith to Ashton Jeanty, with 5:11 to play.

Browns rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders, making his first NFL start, directed Cleveland (3-8) on two first-quarter scoring drives, both of them capped by touchdown runs from Quinshon Judkins.

Sanders threw his first NFL touchdown pass in the fourth quarter, a 66-yard scoring strike to running back Dylan Sampson that made the score 24-3.

Sanders’ father, Colorado coach and former NFL great Deion Sanders, attended the game.

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Rolling out the same offensive line

It almost defied logic, but the same offensive line group that massively struggled last week against the Dallas Cowboys was back at it against the Browns.

That meant Jordan Meredeth, who played the first nine games at center before Jackson Powers-Johnson went down with an injury, was back at right guard, and Will Putnam was at center.

The results were predictable.

Smith had little time to set up and throw, as evidenced by the five sacks in the first half. That grew to seven after the Raiders’ first drive of the second half. At that point, Alex Cappa replaced Putnam at center. Not that it made any difference.

When Smith wasn’t being sacked, he was getting pressured.

On the rare occasions he had time, he wasn’t very good. He completed 30 of 44 passes for 285 yards and the touchdown. He missed two opportunities to hook up with Tre Tucker on long completions.

What makes it so perplexing is the two third-round picks the Raiders invested in offensive linemen Caleb Rogers and Charles Grant. At this point in the season, it would seem to behoove the Raiders to get their young linemen playing time.

Coach Pete Carroll and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly obviously see it differently. The amount of time they have wasted sacrificing important development time while playing a clearly inferior line group is incalculable.

Defense was mostly solid

Things were set up perfectly for the Raiders defense to play a good game. The Browns offense is among the NFL’s worst.

It’s not as if the defense played poorly, but with the offense continuing to struggle, it needed to play close to perfect football.

That was far from the case.

A bad first-quarter special teams sequence led to a 44-yard punt return by the Browns, and a tripping call by punter AJ Cole set Cleveland up at the Raiders’ 13-yard line. It took the Browns two plays to score a touchdown.

Hard to blame the defense for that one. But a massive breakdown by the secondary was the culprit on the Browns’ second touchdown. Cornerback Darnay Holmes let Browns wide receiver Isaiah Bond get a step on him, and Sanders found Bond for a 52-yard completion to the Raiders’ 2.

Judkins scored on the next play to make the score 14-0.

Then came the dagger when Sanders found Sampson on a simple screen pass. Sampson never got touched as he raced to the end zone.

Bad in the margins again

The Raiders are bad in all the obvious ways. But they exacerbate things by being utter failures within the margins.

They converted just 4 of 17 third downs and were 1 of 3 on fourth downs.

They were penalized 13 times for 109 yards, including Jamal Adams’ unsportsmanlike conduct infraction. It negated a 7-yard loss that would have set up a third-and -7 from the Browns 41. Instead, the Browns got an automatic first down at the Raiders 44.

That led to Andre Szmyt’s 53-yard field goal and a 17-3 lead.

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