Raiders special teams: Even this unit is faulty in a lost season

Blocked punt, missed point after highlight how awful year is for Las Vegas

You know the Las Vegas Raiders’ 2024 campaign has gone especially awry when a bedrock group like the special teams unit has joined in on the mistake-fest.

In even the worst of seasons in Silver & Black history, the special teams unit — particularly kicker and punter — tend to be consistent and reliable performers. In front of the primetime football viewing world this past Monday night, however, the warts that’ve been all over the Raiders as a whole showed up on special teams, too.

From a deflected punt in the first quarter to a completely blocked one in the third and a missed extra point, punter AJ Cole III and kicker Daniel Carlson didn’t have the best of evenings under the Allegiant Stadium lights in Las Vegas’ 15-9 loss to visiting Atlanta.

The deflection and block give context to Cole’s well-below average performance against the Falcons. He totaled four punts for 159 yards with an average of 39.8 yards per boot. One of the punts was downed inside Atlanta’s 20-yard line while Cole’s longest boot was a 47 yarder. The 29-year-old came into Week 15 with a league-leading average of 51.7 yards per punt and dropped a few notches (Where They Stand below).

Add into this Carlson’s missed extra point after quarterback Desmond Ridder connected with running back Ameer Abdullah for a five-yard touchdown throw and catch in the fourth quarter, along with the veteran tailback fair catching a punt inside Las Vegas’ five-yard line, and it was an overall flop for the Raiders special teams group.

So much so, that head coach Antonio Pierce had little to say about it after the loss and the following Tuesday.

“Bad day in the office. Really bad day in office. Bottom line,” Pierce responded when asked for an explanation on the special teams face plant right after the defeat. “Well, all teams. We need all three phases to play well. Obviously, we struggled losing nine in a row, you can’t have those mistakes, and we did today and it was a bad day in office. Bottom line.”

“Yeah, there was miscommunication between our personal protector, our guards, and the center,” Pierce noted about the deflected and blocked punts during his media availability on Tuesday.”

When pressed with a follow-up question on how there were only 10 players on the field for the blocked extra point and how does that happen this late in to t he season, Pierce’s answer was trite.

“Shouldn’t have happened,” he said.

Carlson’s participation was limited to one field goal — which he made, a 52-yard blast that sailed through the uprights in the second quarter — and one extra point. That was blocked.

Where They Stand

With his Monday performance being well below what he can do, Cole goes from lead of the pack to fourth overall in average yards per punt at 50.8. The separation between the top three isn’t large (the Detroit Lions’ Jake Fox is tops at 51.1, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Logan Cooke is second at 51.0, and the Tennessee Titans’ Ryan Stonehouse is third at 50.9), but another down performance from Cole could have him settle behind those three. And vice versa, a down performance by Fox, Cooke, or Stonehouse will cause the leader rankings to fluctuate.

In terms of net average (the average minus return or touchback yardage), Cole sits at No. 11 with an average of 42.5 yards per boot. Cooke tops the league with a 46.1 mark and Fox is behind him at 46.0.

Cole remains middle of the pack in number of punts (52) and total yards (2,641) with both good for No. 14 in the NFL in both categories. Finally, Cole and Stonehouse are the only two punters in the league to have two blocked punts on the year.

Carlson, on the other hand, is top 10 in both field goal attempts (31, good for seventh) and makes (26, good for eighth) in the league, but his 83.9 percent field goal percentage is 23rd amongst his peers.

It gets even more morbid when looking at Carlson’s extra points category. A kicker is at the mercy of his team’s offense (and defense) ability to get into end zone and on the year, Carlson sits at 27th in attempts (21) and makes (20).

Up Next: The reeling Raiders (2-12 overall) play host to the Jaguars (3-11) this Sunday. Cole has two career games against Jacksonville under his belt — a Week 15 matchup in 2019 and Week 9 contest in 2022. Cole punted eight times for 363 yards (45.38 yard average per boot) with three of those kicks being downed inside the Jaguars’ 20-yard line. Carlson has the same games on his resume and is 5-for-6 in field goal makes and attempts against Jacksonville. He’s 3-for-3 in career extra points.

Extra Points: The linebacker group of: Amari Burney, Kana’i Mauga, Tommy Eichenburg, and Amari Gainer remain the Raiders staple of core special teamers as they each accounted for 23 snaps (92 percent of the group’s total) against the Falcons. Safeties Thomas Harper and Chris Smith II got 17 snaps (68 percent) while fellow safety Trey Taylor earned 16 snaps. Abdullah received 13 special teams snaps (52 percent) along with 31 offensive snaps (46 percent of the units total).