Raiders look to prove this year’s team is different, won’t suffer late season collapse

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - In the midst of a two game losing streak, the Raiders are looking to turn the tide this Sunday in Cincinnati.

The season has been a string of short winning and losing streaks, but quarterback Derek Carr believes this year’s team will not suffer the late season collapse that has happened the last couple of years.

“We’ve been trying, trying to get it right,” Carr said. “But the thing that separates this team is we did it twice in a row and when we came in this week everybody was like, nope, let’s go. Wherein in the past I would see some falling off. That’s just being honest, calling it what it is. I love these moments. It’s weird, but I love it. It’s adverse, you’re still in it. That’s what you sign up for is to compete. So the state of it is we’re ready to compete, we’re ready to rock.”

Interim head coach Rich Bisaccia said win or lose, you have to have a short-term memory in the NFL.

“Anytime you ride the roller coaster of wins and losses it’s a challenge to all of us, coaches, players, fans,” Bisaccia said. “It’s a challenge for everybody. But we’re 5-4 and about the same as everybody else in the AFC except for maybe three teams. So you can’t get too high off of a win because that lasts too long and it ends up getting stuck to you. And if you stay down too long after a loss then does that multiply into more and more losses. We try to treat them both as imposters the best we can.”

Running back Kenyan Drake said the team’s pride will come out in the preparation with the results hopefully to follow on Sunday.

“We’ve got to make sure we continue to defend home turf,” Drake said. “That was a bad showing from us this last game on national tv. That left a bad taste in all of our mouths. It doesn’t matter around the league what anybody else is doing, we’re kind of focused on our locker and what we’ve got going on so we’re looking forward to letting this week of practice speak for itself and go on to the game and execute how we’re supposed to.”

The Raiders will host the Bengals at Allegiant Stadium Sunday afternoon at 1:05 p.m.

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