Yahoo Finance Raiders WR Nelson Agholor reportedly told teammates they sucked after meltdown vs. Dolphins
Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Nelson Agholor apparently didn’t hold anything back after a meltdown loss against the Miami Dolphins in Week 16.
The Raiders blew a three-point lead with 19 seconds left on a night in which Agholor had five catches for 155 receiving yards. The result put the Dolphins a step closer to the playoffs (though they ultimately didn’t make it) and put the Raiders another loss closer to a .500 season despite going 6-3 entering Week 11.
It didn’t sit well with Agholor, the former Philadelphia Eagles star and Super Bowl winner who signed a one-year deal with Las Vegas. The wide receiver reportedly stormed into the locker room after the loss and lit into his teammates, per Vic Tafur of The Athletic.
Agholor rips into teammates for ‘unacceptable’ play
He reportedly screamed at them and per Tafur’s reporting, head coach Jon Gruden didn’t seem unsupportive of the move.
Agholor, according to those in the room, said his teammates were selfish and didn’t work hard enough, and that they had quit against the Dolphins as well as in the previous two losses. He said there was no accountability in the locker room, and on winning teams players play for one another and the coaches. The Raiders’ performance over the previous six games was unacceptable, and too many people within the team were just flat-out accepting it.
Agholor told his teammates that they sucked.
Then, according to witnesses, he was done and there was silence. Gruden didn’t respond, and neither did any of the players. (When contacted Thursday night about the speech, Gruden texted, “I love Agholor.”)
Agholor, 27, will become a free agent in March. The former first-round draft pick had 48 receptions for a career-high 896 yards and eight touchdowns in his one season in Las Vegas. The Miami game was his most productive as he and Darren Waller combined for 267 of the team’s 418 yards of offense.
Raiders’ season of meltdowns
The Raiders underperformed again this season under Gruden. For the second consecutive year the team started off well, but imploded. The Raiders had wins over the New Orleans Saints and Kansas City Chiefs — both conference championship contender teams — and strung together three in a row in November.
Then they lost five of their final seven, with two wins that were barely theirs to have. First there was the New York Jets blowing what should have been their first victory by somehow allowing Derek Carr to complete a Hail Mary attempt with five seconds left. And then late heroics against the Denver Broncos barely earned them a season finale victory.
The rails were already starting to come off in some ways. The NFL fined Gruden for not properly wearing a mask and then fined a group of Raiders for not wearing masks to a charity event.
In November the franchise was levied a $500,000 fine and the loss of a 2021 sixth-round draft pick for “repeated offenses” of COVID-19 protocol. Gruden was also hit with a separate fine again.
There’s plenty of lacking accountability to go around.
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