Silver And Black Pride
There aren’t many teams that can say they began and ended the 2025 season with wins, but the 3-14 Las Vegas Raiders managed to pull that off by taking down the Kansas City Chiefs 14-12 in Week 18. It was the Raiders’ first victory in nearly three months and in the division over the last two years. Also, Las Vegas managed to maintain the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL draft.
That gave Raider Nation plenty to cheer about on Sunday, leading to a more positive winners and losers column.
I was hard on Wilson last week, as he had an underwhelming performance against the New York Giants. However, I’m eating some crow this time around as the third-year pro had a phenomenal outing in the season finale. Wilson had the best game of his career as a pass-rusher, collecting seven pressures (fifth-most among edge defenders in Week 18, per Pro Football Focus) and a couple of sacks.
Both times he got to the quarterback were very impactful, too, logging a strip sack and a safety to guide Las Vegas to the two-point victory. Wilson’s future is still murky, but he did his job on Sunday by finishing the season on a high note.
This one is obvious since Carroll ended up getting fired the day after the game. Clearly, that was a foregone conclusion as the win didn’t save his job. He’s a Hall of Fame-caliber coach, but this will likely be the end of the 74-year-old’s career, and finishing it with a 3-14 record has to sting. At least Carroll can say he won his first and last game as an NFL head coach, going out a winner (kind of).
As frustrating as this season was for the Silver and Black, one of the few bright spots was watching Hemingway’s growth down the stretch of the campaign. He became a fixture in the defensive line rotation over the last six games and got better every week, culminating with a season-high four pressures and two sacks in the season finale.
The South Carolina product ends his rookie year with four sacks, which is good production considering he only played in nine games and only received more than 20 defensive snaps in five of them.
Pickett is an impending free agent and had an opportunity to put some good tape out there to prove he can be a viable backup quarterback in the NFL. However, he ended up completing one of four passes for three yards and an interception while getting significantly outplayed by Aidan O’Connell.
Also, Pickett was dangerously close to throwing another pick right before getting pulled from the game, giving him two ‘turnover-worthy plays’ from PFF. The fourth-year pro made two starts for Las Vegas this season and combined for 67 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions in those contests. That could make finding a new home difficult this...
