Josh McDaniels apologizes to "Raider Nation" after getting shut out to fall to 2-5

BOSTON -- The Raiders had high hopes when they brought in Josh McDaniels to be their head coach this year. Those hopes took a hit when the team got off to a rough start, but they reached a new low on Sunday.

The Raiders failed to score a single point on Sunday in New Orleans, losing to the 2-5 Saints by a final score of 24-0. With the Broncos winning in London earlier on Sunday, the loss dropped Las Vegas into last place in the AFC West.

Prior to Sunday, the Raiders had averaged 27 points per game, never scoring fewer than 19 points in a game. The Saints had allowed an average of 30 points per game through seven weeks, too. But on Sunday, the Raiders punted five times, threw one interception, turned the ball over on downs once, and ran out of time at the end of the game on their eight real drives.

Considering McDaniels' offensive background with the Patriots, a game like this was not supposed to happen. So after the loss, he offered up an apology.

"Obviously, that wasn't good enough in any way, shape or form. And that's my responsibility. So I have to do a much better job of getting ourselves ready to go here. That's -- we're better than that. And, you know, I apologize to Raider Nation for that performance," McDaniels said. "And, again, I own that. I mean, that's my responsibility. So we have to do much better, obviously, in every phase of the game to be able to compete with a team like that who's well-coached, has good players. They obviously came ready to play and they did a much better job than we did. So it starts with me, and we're gonna work hard. We're gonna fix it."

The loss dropped McDaniels' record as a head coach to 13-22 between Denver and Las Vegas, a number that was supposed to get better during his second head-coaching stint. That of course has not yet happened, but McDaniels vowed that fixes will come.

"Yeah, we're gonna have to figure that out. Obviously, there's no shortcut to that," McDaniels said. "You know, we we've performed and played much better than this. We've coached better than this. And you know, when we play a game like this -- backwards on the road against a good team in a hostile environment -- you make things difficult on yourself. So, we didn't get off to a good start, and again, they did, and credit to them. Dennis [Allen] did a great job with his team today. And like I said, I gotta do better."

McDaniels added: "I don't think there's any big speech to give. Look, the season's still -- again, there's a lot of football still left to be played and coached. We have to work. The only way to fix things that aren't being done well, the only way to win when you're not winning consistently, is to put work in and try to improve. Clearly we need to improve in all three phases. That's our job. That's my responsibility. And like I said, that's what we're gonna have to do. And that's what we will do."

Last year, even after firing Jon Gruden and elevating Rich Bisaccia to interim head coach, the Raiders went 10-7, went to the playoffs, and lost a one-possession postseason game to the Bengals, who eventually represented the AFC in the Super Bowl. The addition of McDaniels and big-time receiver Davante Adams elevated expectations in a big way, but thus far, the Raiders have nothing but a 2-5 record to show for it.