The Raiders ran over Cleveland en route to a nail-biting 20-16 win on Sunday, their second victory of the season.
Paced by Alexander Mattison and thanks to some designed runs for its speedy wideouts, Las Vegas raced to a season-high 152 rushing yards against Cleveland, picking up the slack for Gardner Minshew, who was down Davante Adams and threw for 130 yards on 24 attempts.
Mattison led the way with 60 yards on just five carries, breaking gains for 24, 16 and 18 yards against the Browns’ front. Meanwhile, Las Vegas’ incumbent back, Zamir White, gained just 50 yards on 17 carries for a 2.9 YPC average.
After Sunday’s showing, Raiders coach Antonio Pierce implied Monday that Mattison should see more action in Las Vegas’ backfield going forward.
“He’s deserved more reps,” Pierce told reporters, “and he’ll get ’em.”
On the season, White is the Raiders’ lead ball-carrier (49 carries, eighth in the NFL entering Monday) despite averaging just 3.1 yards per attempt. The third-year back has yet to average more than 3.4 yards per tote in a game this season. Entering Sunday’s game, White’s -0.61 expected points added per carry this season was the fewest by any RB in the league with at least 30 carries.
Meanwhile, Mattison, the sixth-year vet in his first season with the Raiders after five with the Vikings, is averaging 5.1 yards per carry and has totaled 167 total yards and 24 touches through four games.
Mattison’s success rate on runs (41.2%) is much higher than White’s (22.4%) through four games, as well, per Next Gen Stats.
In addition to possibly moving toward Mattison as RB1, Las Vegas may continue to use Tre Tucker and DJ Turner in the ground game. The two wideouts each scored touchdowns Sunday on their lone carries (3 and 18 yards, respectively).
Asked whether he would continue to use his wideouts in the run, even when Adams returns from injury, Pierce was unequivocal.
“It has to be [part of our offense]. It worked,” Pierce said. “It has to be.”
After a trying week during which Pierce called out unnamed players for making “business decisions” in a disappointing loss to the Panthers, the Raiders are back to .500, flying high after their second win in three weeks over an AFC North playoff team. But the first-year coach isn’t celebrating yet, especially ahead of a Week 5 clash with the divisional rival Broncos (2-2).
“I’m proud of the business decisions our team made because they made some really good ones last night. That was good business decisions,” Pierce said. “To see them go out and really take pride in their body of work and our staff keeping everything close together and tight-knit was really a credit to what we’re building this offseason and into the season.
“How satisfying? I don’t want to be too happy because we want to stack wins. We’re not gonna sit there like we won the Super Bowl because we won a game.”
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