Las Vegas will has a very difficult schedule based on sportsbooks’ odds
It’s no secret that many people feel like the NFL hates and actively works against the Las Vegas Raiders. Whether it’s blown calls by the officials on the field, botched replay reviews (I’m not going to say it…) or just some of the decisions the league makes, sometimes it feels like Pete Rozelle and Al Davis are still fighting with each other.
Well, Raider Nation’s conspiracy theorists just got more fuel to the fire…
Todd Dewey of the Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote an article yesterday evaluating the difficulty of every NFL team’s schedule this season, using odds from Las Vegas sportsbooks. The Pittsburgh Steelers drew the toughest schedule as their opponents combine for 156 projected wins, per line makers. Just behind the Steelers is their long-time AFC rivals, with 155.5 projected wins for the Raiders’ adversaries.
Now, Las Vegas does play in a tough division as the win totals for every team in the AFC West are as follows:
- Kansas City 12.5
- Los Angeles 9.5
- Denver 8.5
- Las Vegas 7.5
So, the Raiders schedule would be tough regardless if Rozelle’s ghost is still haunting the Davis family.
Here’s what Westgate vice president of risk Ed Salmons had to say about the AFC West and the Silver and Black’s difficult schedule:
“That division is tough. Denver and the Chargers are rated really high even though they disappointed last year. There’s not one easy game in that division. It kind of feels like the same thing every year for the Raiders where they have a hard schedule. At some point, they need to make a jump forward and win some more games.”
At the end of the day, the games are still played on the field and all that really matters is the last sentence of Salmons’ quote. It’s time for the Raiders to win some games and prove everyone wrong!
In Other Raiders’ Links:
- Jacobs loves Raiders’ “fighting spirit”: Las Vegas got into a huge brawl in practice with Los Angeles and the running back liked that his teammates had each other’s backs.
- Incognito, Morrow Injured: both players went down with what seems to be leg injuries. The guard’s didn’t seem as serious as the linebacker’s but no further updates are available.
- Raiders potentially facing tax problems: there’s currently conflicting information on the matter but whatever is going on is believed to be the reason four front office members recently resigned.
- Las Vegas leaves practice early: as mentioned above, the Raiders and Rams got into a fight during joint practices on Thursday and coach Gruden decided to remove his team from the field 45 minutes early.