LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The Las Vegas Raiders are going to face a familiar team when they welcome the New England Patriots to Allegiant Stadium on Sunday.
Raiders general manager Dave Ziegler, head coach Josh McDaniels, and quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo are just some of the former Patriots that now call the valley home.
When it comes to the history between the two teams, McDaniels said there's "a lot to digest here".
"I think the biggest thing is to be ready for anything. I think they're very fundamentally sound too," McDaniels said. "I don't think that they go week-to-week and try to do things that don't make sense and don't have a clear purpose or intention behind them. I think we'll figure out how exactly the game will declare. We'll see what that is and then it's time to just kind of figure out if we need to make a shift or an adjustment during the course of the game. That's part of the challenge of playing them is they're going to have an idea of how to try to stop you from beating them the way that you want to beat them and that's the chess match."
But if you think the chess match could have surprises, think again.
"I think it'd be pretty hard to surprise Coach [Belichick]. He's been in this league for awhile. Obviously, one of the best to ever do it," said Garoppolo. "He's seen just about everything. So, we'll do what we do. I'm sure we'll have a couple of wrinkles here and there. I'm sure they will too. It's fun though. You've got to embrace it and make the best of it."
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The Patriots have started this season with a record of 1-4. However, Raiders' wide receiver Davante Adams said appearances can be deceiving.
"You can't be fooled into thinking that is not a solid team because of the record. We have to keep in mind the history of that organization and who's coaching over there," Adams said. "They do have a lot of players that can make plays. It's one of those games that you have to kind of dive into the tape and make sure you know who you're playing against. That way, you don't get fooled thinking that based off of the 1-4 record, that it's going to be an easy game. Just based off the way we've been playing, we need to focus more on what we got going on."
The Raiders are coming off of a 17-13 win over the Green Bay Packers. Adams and Garoppolo both said they want to keep that winning mentality going into the matchup against the Patriots, as long as they can also stay grounded to get the job done.
"We need to have some type of convincing victories. That way, we can really hold on to that feeling, not the feeling of just squeezing out," Adams said. "Obviously, defense did a great job coming through in the clutch at the end of the game, but we didn't do much to help them out there. We haven't been this year so that's more what I'm focused on rather than just squeezing victories and being happy at that."
"It's hard to win in this league, but you want to be perfect. I think as an offense, we're trying to always push for that," Garoppolo said. "Just the little details that we could hone in on. If we can get those knocked down, we could really do some damage."
Kick-off is scheduled for 1:05 p.m. at Allegiant Stadium.
