Sports

Tyler Lockett was the Raiders' leading receiver in Thursday night's loss to the Broncos. Which may be both good news and bad news.

It's good news that Lockett has already re-established the rapport with quarterback Geno Smith that the two of them had as teammates in Seattle. But it's bad news that the Raiders have so few players making plays in their offense that the 33-year-old Lockett can get cut by the Titans in the middle of the season, sign in Las Vegas, and 10 days later emerge as the Raiders' No. 1 receiver.

Smith threw six passes to Lockett, and Lockett caught five of them for 44 yards. That made Lockett No. 1 on the Raiders on Thursday night in targets, catches and yards. Smith saw that as a positive.

"I thought Lockett played a tremendous game for only being here a week and a half," Smith said. "As he continues to learn the offense I think he's going to really help us out down the line."

The Raiders' best offensive playmaker, tight end Brock Bowers, set up the Raiders' only touchdown when he kept a drive alive with a 31-yard catch on third-and-9. But that was Bowers' only catch of the night. Ideally, the Raiders would be getting the ball in Bowers' hands a lot more than that — and not need Lockett to be their leading receiver.

Raiders head coach Pete Carroll is not happy with his offense. Nor should he be, after Thursday night's 10-7 loss to the Broncos.

Carroll said after the game that offensive coordinator Chip Kelly (whom Carroll has previously criticized for not running the ball enough) was trying to get the ground game going but the Raiders' offense just couldn't get the job done.

"We're not scoring enough points," Carroll said. "That's about as obvious as you can get. . . . We've got to run the ball better . . . Chip was trying. He was staying with the running game to try to not let them tee off on us. We've got to score more."

The Raiders ran the ball for just 74 yards on 25 carries and gained only four first downs on the ground. Rookie running back Ashton Jeanty, who was supposed to transform the Raiders' running game when he was selected with the sixth overall pick in the draft, managed just 60 yards on 19 carries.

Through nine games, the Raiders rank 30th in the NFL with an average of 15.4 points per game.

Raiders right guard Jackson Powers-Johnson will miss time after he injured his ankle in the second quarter on Thursday night.

Coach Pete Carroll indicated after losing 10-7 to the Broncos that Powers-Johnson's injury was significant.

"He hurt his ankle, legit. I don't want to go into any of the details but he hurt his ankle. He'll be out for a while," Carroll said.

Powers-Johnson went down while blocking Denver's John Franklin-Myers and stayed down until he was helped off the field, taken to the medical tent and then carted to the locker room.

Powers-Johnson was a second-round pick of the Raiders last year and has quickly emerged as one of the NFL's best young interior linemen. He won the Rimington Trophy at Oregon as college football's best center, but has played guard with the Raiders.

Alex Cappa replaced Powers-Johnson at right guard and may need to stay there for a significant period of time, which is a big loss for the Raiders' offense.