Raiders’ offensive coordinator Mick Lombardi breaks down current state of offense

The Las Vegas Raiders are feeling better about themselves after a 32-23 win over the Denver Broncos in Week 4 to improve to 1-3.

The Raiders’ offense did some good things to help the win, including rushing for 212 yards and getting nine catches from star wide receiver Davante Adams. While there still are problems on that side of the ball, the unit did play a key role in the win. Las Vegas offensive coordinator Mick Lombardi said the team’s practice time last week helped the unit against the Broncos and thus, gave it some more confidence.

“Confidence obviously comes from practicing well. I think that’s the number one thing and those guys had a really good week of practice last week and I think they went into Sunday afternoon saying, ‘You know what, we’re going to execute our job and we feel pretty good about getting the running game going because we executed in practice,’ “ Lombardi said. “So, again, it goes back to flushing it and moving on. If we don’t have a good practice on Wednesday and Thursday, we’re going to have a lapse in confidence on Monday night. We got to make sure that we come in here on Wednesday morning and say, ‘You know what, we got to really make sure we did a good job of executing the plan on the practice field’, because that’s really what gives us confidence for Sunday. It doesn’t really matter what’s happened in the game prior. It really happens on the practice field during the week.”

Now, the Raiders need to continue to build on the good things they did on offense Monday night in a game at the 3-1 Kansas City Chiefs and their potent offense led by superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Still, Lombardi said his mindset is not to feel like the Raiders have to win a shootout.

“I don’t really see it that way. I think we see it as we play offense and we’re going to try and play complimentary football. We’re going to try and take care of the football,” Lombardi said. “I think that’s the biggest thing we can do. If we don’t turn the ball over, if we convert some third downs and we do better in the red area, those are the things we can control. And obviously I have great faith in our defense to do their job. They’re saying the same thing about us. And if we do that, we’ll just be fine, and the game will take care of itself. We have to worry about what we can control first and that’s ball security, that’s field position, that’s converting third downs, converting short yardage and scoring when we get in the red area instead of the 10-yard line. That’s really at the end day what we have to do, and if we do that, I’m sure the game will take care of itself.”