You won’t find many scores more lopsided than the final tally from Thursday night’s game — and the history books spell it out. The Las Vegas Raiders destroyed the Los Angeles Chargers by a margin of 63-21, breaking a record that was, surprisingly, set by the New Orleans Saints.
That’s because the Raiders are led by interim head coach Antonio Pierce, who took over earlier this season. Pierce’s 42-point margin of victory is the biggest win by an interim head coach since the league merger in 1970, surpassing the 41-0 shutout that the Saints pitched when Joe Vitt was their interim coach back in 2012.
It isn’t the biggest win by an interim coach in pro football history, though. As noted by CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones, Chicago Bears interim coach Hunk Anderson and Luke Johnsos logged a 47-0 win against the Cleveland Rams way back in 1942. How’s that for a stat?
But this Raiders win does surpass the Saints’ blowout in 2012. And it’s just the tenth time sine 1970 that a team has scored more than 60 points in a game, as observed by Yahoo Sports’ Charles McDonald. The Miami Dolphins put up 70 points on Sean Payton’s Denver Broncos earlier this season.
The last time before that, Payton was on the other end of it (and so was Vitt, the current Broncos senior defensive assistant) when his Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts 62-7 more than a decade ago in 2011. It’s funny how these things are all interconnected.
