Regardless of the injury, he went 4-of-4 for 49 yards on that possession, marking the Raiders’ longest of the night with a net of 42 yards. However, the Raiders and a false start contributed to the Raiders sending the Broncos back from midfield.
Smith spent Denver’s next drive in the blue, too, but ran again after cornerback Kyu Blu Kelly’s interception brought the team five yards into Broncos territory.
“He wanted to go back in worse,” Carroll said. “He wanted to go finish the game for his teammates. He got a knife in the quad. He got a bruise or something like that, an injury, whatever it is.
Smith was fighting, but he might as well have been stiffing up. He moved even more cautiously than before and was almost entirely condemned to delivery duty in the drive that followed. The Raiders rallied with Ashton Jeanty four straight times despite being down late in the fourth quarter. Smith didn’t attempt a pass until Las Vegas’ fifth play on third-and-6, which fell incomplete.
Daniel Carlson then missed a 48-yard field goal that would have tied the score on the next drive, giving the ball back to the Broncos with 4:26 left.
As Denver began to milk the clock away, Las Vegas declared Smith doubtful to return.
“He couldn’t have responded the next time,” Carroll said. “He wasn’t going to go back. But he tried.”
All of Pickett’s alternate heroes were not meant to be. The Broncos found a groove that had eluded both teams for most of the night in a defensive struggle, picking up three first downs to ensure the Raiders lost without seeing the ball again.
The loss dropped Las Vegas to 2-7 on the season, one loss away from the team’s second four-game losing streak of the year.
Smith hasn’t played up to the standard he’s set in the back half of his career, starting with his 2022 AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year campaign he put together as a Seattle Seahawk under Pete Carroll.
Signed to Vegas to reunite with his old coach, Smith has thrown for a league-leading 1,844 yards, 11 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in nine games. He now has to overcome four bruises during the team’s layoff in order to play — and hopefully start playing well — against the Cowboys on Monday night football on Nov 17
It’s not a major injury, thankfully, but it’s yet another setback for a Raiders squad struggling to make ends meet in Carroll and Smith’s first year in Sin City.