Broncos at Raiders: First quarter recap

The Oakland Raiders received the ball to open things up on Monday Night Football. They came out motivated and pushed the Denver Broncos defense around early on with the short, rhythmic passing game and found themselves just outside of field goal range in the opening minutes of the game.

From the Broncos 40, Derek Carr went deep down the sideline to a tight end Darrel Weller for a big gain down to the 16 yard line with Isaac Yiadom in coverage.

Carr would cap the 11-play opening drive with a touchdown strike over the middle to Tyrell Williams to put the Raiders up early.

Raiders 7, Broncos 0.

Predictably, with momentum all the way on the home teams side the first possession for Denver did not go well. They quickly found themselves in a third and 14 situation where Joe Flacco threw to Phillip Lindsay on a short swing pass for a 10 yard gain to end their opening drive.

Colby Wadman flipped field position with a 59-yard punt, but the crowd was into it and the Broncos defense didn’t get much rest.

The Raiders kept the chunk yards going on their next drive in ways that often seemed too easy. A holding call on first down and a Bradley Chubb batted ball set up the Raiders in a 2nd and 20, but they were able to get 16 of those yards back before being forced into their first punt of the game.

Flacco opened the next drive in an empty set, hitting Courtland Sutton over the middle on a catch and run for a huge gain of 40 yards. Rookie tight end Noah Fant egregiously blocked a defender in the back on the play to remove 10 of those yards on the play.

Two short run plays later, Flacco on 3rd and 6 hit Sutton over the middle again for a big 18 yard gain into Raiders territory to end the first quarter.