what they want about the Pats, but one thing I respect about them and I wish the Raiders had was that they have a killer instinct. They show no mercy and aren't afraid to annihilate their opponents. The Raiders should've put up at least 40 (maybe even 50) against the Chargers and kept them below 20. They were too busy playing preventive defense and offense and playing not to lose, but they ironically got much closer to losing after having a 37-6 blowout on their hands.
One thing I was surprised by was the amount of Raider fans there versus Charger fans. Up until recently, I would've assumed that the Chargers had way more fans than the Raiders down there since they're SoCal's only team, they've been successful the last decade, and they play closer to L.A. than the Raiders do. It's funny yet sad how home games for the Chargers get turned into road games between games against the Raiders and a few weeks ago against the Steelers. Qualcomm got blacked out. I have to give props to any SoCal Raider fans for showing up (even though they're trying to steal our team).

Maybe it's me, but I think I see more of that (teams adopting conservative play with 4th quarter leads) in the NFL. If it's to protect players from injury I can understand it, but that's not the case. I think it's a "cover our ass" paradoxical mindset that the way one protects leads is to make it easier for the other team to move the ball. It's become a trite tactic and easily exploited by opposition quarterbacks with even average skills.