It would be fair to say that the Thanksgiving clash between the Dallas Cowboys and the Las Vegas Raiders delivered.
The tightly-fought encounter ended in a close-run overtime win, 36-33 to the Raiders, and included a brawl that saw players brawling and a bloodied referee. All of this taking place in front of a television audience higher than any other regular-season game since 1990.
Both the Cowboys and the Raiders have hopes of making it to the postseason, and any sports betting enthusiast wishing to back either team should go to sidelines.io to check out the latest odds available. The win for Las Vegas puts them just a game back from the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC West, and Dallas still sits top of the NFC East.
CBS released early numbers following the big game, posting 38.5m as an average viewership, and that’s down to a number of factors. Those include the fact that the Cowboys are well supported and that the game was exciting from the first whistle to the last.
As for the altercation that took place after Roderic Teamer and Kelvin Joseph came to blows before 20+ other players got involved, as tends to be the case, the win ended a three-game losing streak for the Raiders and came after Daniel Carlson converted a 29-yard field goal in overtime.
The win was a sweet one for interim head coach Rich Bisaccia, who spent five seasons at the Cowboys as the special teams’ coach, and gives them a good push as they seek to end a run of many lean seasons.
The Raiders have only made it to the postseason on one occasion in their last 19 seasons and will have to hope that Bisaccia can deliver following his appointment as replacement for disgraced head coach Jon Gruden.
Bisaccia will have been impressed with the way quarterback Derek Carr combined with wide receiver DeSean Jackson, the pair working well to complete a 56-yard opening touchdown, and a lot is expected of the duo, and the new man in charge is hoping they can deliver;
“It’s his third weekend playing with us, and I think the packages you saw come to fruition a little bit today,”
“The big thing was Derek had a lot of time. I thought he stepped up in there today and made really incredible plays. . . . But you can see DeSean hopefully getting more and more comfortable with what we’re asking him to do. . . . One thing he can still do is run. It was fun to watch him. Even though he made the comment he was excited to contribute today, and it was good for him, and it was good for us.” Bisaccia added.
Next up for the Las Vegas Raiders comes Washington, followed by that key game against divisional rivals the Kansas City Chiefs, and that clash on December 12th could go some way to shaping their season.