Raiders 31-20 win over Lions first for Dennis Allen as head coach

Sure, in the books it won't count as a win. But for Dennis Allen, it matters just the same. The Raiders came out and beat the Detroit Lions in the most meaningful of all the preseason games. It wasn't perfect and there were points left on the field but the Raiders had the lead most of the game.

There were mixed results to start the game. The Raiders drove down the field and were threatening on their first drive thanks in part to some Darren McFadden runs and connections between Carson Palmer and Rod Streater. But the drive stalled and the Raiders would have to settle for a field goal... attempt... and Sebastian Janikowski missed it from just 30 yards out.

Then the Lions took the ball right down the field for a score of their own. With the Raiders defense stuffing their rush attempts, they did it almost entirely through the air. They too were stopped short of a scoring. But unlike the Raiders, they made their 41-yard field goal try.

After that it was a defensive stop for the Raiders, followed by another drive. This time they would punch it in. But not before they had their share of failed attempts. They found themselves in first and goal at the one yard line just as they had last week. And just like last week, they tried punching it in with Darren McFadden.

The result was a McFadden tackle for loss, a Palmer scramble for no gain, a McFadden run for one yard and the team was facing fourth and goal from the one. Last week in this situation they brought out the field goal unit. This week they went for it. They, of course, ran McFadden up the middle and he was stopped initially but got away enough to reach over the goal line. It still wasn't that easy as the refs called it a fumble and the Raiders had to challenge the play to get it overturned but it was a touchdown after all was said and done.

Following the score, the Raiders gave up a big 80 yard kick return. That alone was not the tragic part. It was Sebastian Janikowski suffering groin injury trying to tackle the return man. The Lions weren't able to punch it in but came out with a field goal.

The Raiders would finish out the half with Eddy Carmona lining up and hitting a 56 yard field goal to go up 10-6.

The story of the first half was the Raiders defense holding the Lions to 7 yards rushing and 91 total yards. They also held all world wide receiver Calvin Johnson to just one catch for 7 yards.

Telling another story was the offense and Carson Palmer who threw two more interceptions. That makes four interceptions this preseason.

The second half started in controversial fashion when an interception by Matt Giordano was negated by a bad call for roughing the passer on Tommy Kelly. Two plays later, instead of a turnover, the Lions scored a touchdown.

Terrelle Pryor entered the game for the Raiders on the offense's first drive of the third quarter. On his second series, it became the "TP show". On three of his next four drives, he led the team to a touchdown.

The first drive he ran for 86 yards on two runs-a 59 yard run followed by a 17 yard touchdown run. The second touchdown was a 41 yard grab by Juron Criner and the final touchdown was a slant pattern Criner ran for 76 yard touchdown.

"Terrelle did a nice job." said Dennis Allen. "He came in and threw a couple of nice balls, two for touchdowns, both of them to [Juron] Criner, so that was good to see. I thought he managed the huddle a lot better in this game, which was really an area of improvement we were looking for out of him. He's still a work in progress, but I thought he made some strides today."

The Lions would get one more touchdown late in the game but there was no coming back from this one and the Raiders got their first win of the 2012 preseason 31-20 over the Lions.

Dennis Allen was happy to get his first win as Raiders head coach:

"Any time you get a chance to get a win, you do nothing but grow from that." said Allen. "We talk about creating habits and you're either creating good habits or bad habits and today we created a good habit. It's a good habit to get into winning. I talked to guys before about that's why we play the game and that's what we went out there and tried to do today."

Box Score

Detroit Lions (1-2-0) Oakland Raiders (1-2-0)

Passing CP/AT YDS TD INT

K. Moore 10/19 87 1 1

M. Stafford 8/10 68 0 0

Sh. Hill 7/15 67 1 0

Rushing ATT YDS TD LG

K. Williams 6 22 0 8

Sh. Hill 2 13 0 8

J. Bell 5 11 0 3

L. Long 1 8 0 8

N. Burleson 1 7 0 7

S. Green 1 3 0 3

M. Leshoure 5 1 0 4

K. Smith 3 0 0 1

Receiving REC YDS TD LG

L. Long 4 43 0 17

N. Burleson 4 37 0 16

B. Pettigrew 4 31 1 11

T. Scheffler 2 26 0 17

R. Broyles 2 16 0 13

A. Gottlieb 2 15 1 10T

N. Hughes 2 13 0 9

A. Wells 1 12 0 12

S. Green 1 9 0 9

P. Edwards 1 7 0 7

C. Johnson 1 7 0 7

M. Leshoure 1 6 0 6

Fumbles FUM LOST REC YDS

P. Edwards 1 0 1 0

Kicking FG LG XP PTS

J. Hanson 2/2 41 0/0 6

D. Dimke 0/0 0 2/2 2

Punting NO AVG I20 LG

R. Donahue 4 35.8 1 43

B. Graham 2 37.5 1 45

Kickoff Returns NO AVG TD LG

N. Hughes 3 24 0 29

S. Green 1 80 0 80

Punt Returns NO AVG TD LG

P. Edwards 1 0 0 0

T. Young 0 0 0 0

Defense T-A SCK INT FF

J. Durant 5-1 0.0 0 0

D. Levy 5-3 0.0 0 0

J. Miller 4-1 0.0 0 0

A. Smith 4-0 0.0 0 0

J. Wendling 4-1 0.0 0 0

J. Lacey 3-0 0.0 0 0

C. Houston 2-0 0.0 0 0

S. Jones 2-0 0.0 0 0

R. Silva 2-1 0.0 0 0

N. Suh 2-0 1.0 0 0

S. Tulloch 2-1 0.0 1 0

D. Bentley 1-0 0.0 0 0

E. Coleman 1-1 0.0 0 0

N. Fairley 1-0 0.0 0 0

D. Hogue 1-0 0.0 0 0

E. McClam 1-0 0.0 0 0

C. Messina 1-0 0.0 0 0

T. Robertson 1-2 0.0 0 0

B. Skinner 1-1 0.0 0 0

A. Spievey 1-0 0.0 0 0

T. Whitehead 1-0 0.0 0 0

C. Williams 1-0 0.0 0 0

W. Young 1-1 0.0 1 0

SamL. Hill 1-1 0.0 0 0

E. Brown 0-1 0.0 0 0

A. Fluellen 0-1 0.0 0 0

J. Green 0-1 0.0 0 0

L. Jackson 0-1 0.0 0 0

T. Lewis 0-1 0.0 0 0

R. Lewis 0-1 0.0 0 0

Passing CP/AT YDS TD INT

C. Palmer 17/26 181 0 2

T. Pryor 3/5 137 2 0

Rushing ATT YDS TD LG

T. Pryor 5 90 1 59

T. Jones 10 50 0 12

D. McFadden 9 27 1 13

M. Goodson 7 18 0 7

L. Miller 4 13 0 5

D. Heyward-Bey 1 5 0 5

C. Palmer 1 0 0 0

K. Newhall-Caballer 3 -5 0 -1

Receiving REC YDS TD LG

J. Criner 2 115 2 76T

R. Streater 5 56 0 17

D. Heyward-Bey 2 55 0 41

B. Myers 5 41 0 13

T. Session 1 22 0 22

D. McFadden 2 11 0 7

D. Ausberry 1 10 0 10

T. Jones 2 8 0 4

Fumbles FUM LOST REC YDS

T. Pryor 1 0 0 -3

M. Goodson 0 0 1 0

Kicking FG LG XP PTS

E. Carmona 1/1 56 3/3 6

S. Janikowski 0/1 0 1/1 1

Punting NO AVG I20 LG

S. Lechler 4 44.5 1 50

Kickoff Returns NO AVG TD LG

M. Goodson 2 11 0 16

T. Jones 2 17 0 20

D. Muhammad 1 0 0 0

Punt Returns NO AVG TD LG

B. McCann 3 4 0 10

Defense T-A SCK INT FF

L. Houston 6-2 0.0 0 0

T. Branch 5-1 0.0 0 0

P. Wheeler 4-1 0.0 0 0

M. Burris 3-0 0.0 0 0

C. Chekwa 3-0 0.0 0 0

R. McClain 3-1 0.0 0 0

D. Bryant 2-0 0.0 0 0

J. Cumbie 2-0 1.0 0 0

T. Goethel 2-0 0.0 0 0

M. Huff 2-0 0.0 0 0

C. Ihenacho 2-0 0.0 0 0

P. Lee 2-0 0.0 0 0

C. Taylor 2-0 0.0 0 0

D. Van Dyke 2-0 0.0 0 0

R. Bartell 1-1 0.0 0 0

J. Crawford 1-0 0.0 0 0

M. Giordano 1-0 0.0 0 0

M. Shaughnessy 1-1 0.0 0 0

S. Spencer 1-0 0.0 0 0

D. Tollefson 1-0 0.0 0 0

B. Underwood 1-0 0.0 0 0

C. Bilukidi 0-1 0.0 1 0