Silver Minings: Jon Gruden wants better discipline from defense

Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden sees some progress from his defense, but he wants to see the unit stop hurting itself.

The Raiders’ defense made several blunders and penalties in a 35-31 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday and it has been happening often this season.

“Well, we can’t give free plays,” Gruden said. “We can’t jump offsides, we can’t commit holding calls and personal foul penalties. You can’t give a guy like (Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes) anything on top of what he’s capable of doing. We gave them some opportunities we can’t afford to give him and that’s a reflection of me. We got to do a better job eliminating the defensive penalties and we got to improve our down-to-down discipline, and that will be a big assessment that we make with our players.”

Let’s see if the Raiders improve in that area Sunday at the Atlanta Falcons.

Other Raiders news:

• High praise: Patrick Mahomes thinks Raiders are “great.”
• Final drive: The Athletic breaks down what went wrong on the Chiefs’ game-winning MNF drive.
• Where do Raiders rank? Check out where Yahoo has the Raiders placed in their NFL Week 12 power rankings,
• Must-see TV: The Raiders-Chiefs game was the second-highest watched NFL game this season.
• Where does Carr rank? Take a peek at where Derek Carr is ranked in Fansided’s quarterback rankings.