Denver (10-2) at Las Vegas (2-10)
Sunday, 4:05 p.m. EST, CBS.
BetMGM NFL Odds: Broncos by 7 1/2.
Against the spread: Broncos 5-6-1; Raiders 4-8.
Series record: Raiders lead 73-57-2.
Last meeting: Broncos beat Raiders 10-7 in Denver on Nov. 6.
Last week: Broncos beat Commanders 27-26 in overtime; Raiders lost to Chargers 31-14.
Broncos offense: overall (12), rush (14), pass (14), scoring (13).
Broncos defense: overall (5), rush (5), pass (9), scoring (4).
Raiders offense: overall (30), rush (32), pass (26), scoring (32).
Raiders defense: overall (16), rush (15), pass (17T), scoring (26).
Turnover differential: Broncos minus-3; Raiders minus-3.
WR Courtland Sutton last week eclipsed 6,000 receiving yards in just his 110th game. He became the third-fastest Bronco to reach that mark, behind only Broncos Ring of Fame WRs Demaryius Thomas (76 games) and Rod Smith (95 games). Sutton has five touchdowns this season and 23 since Sean Payton took over as head coach in 2023.
DE Maxx Crosby has played at an All-Pro level the past five games with 13 tackles for loss and four sacks. The Chargers didn't have many answers for him, allowing four TFLs and two sacks. Denver, to borrow a hockey term, kept Crosby off the score sheet in the first meeting. If he can get to Bo Nix, that gives the Raiders a chance to at least keep the game close.
Raiders offensive line vs. Broncos defensive front. Las Vegas' line has struggled, with injuries decimating a unit that was struggling even when healthy. Denver brings in a top-five defense that leads the NFL with 51 sacks. The Broncos sacked Geno Smith six times and held the Raiders to 74 yards rushing in their first meeting. It's not a stretch to imagine a similar scenario playing out again.
Broncos: DT D.J. Jones (ankle) and TE Nate Adkins (knee) will not play. OLB Jonah Ellis, who has missed multiple games with a pulled hamstring, was a full participant in practice this week and no longer has an injury designation.
Raiders: DE Maxx Crosby (knee) is questionable, but coach Pete Carroll expects him to play. TE Michael Mayer (ankle) and WRs Alex Bachman (thumb) and Dont’e Thornton Jr. (concussion) were ruled out. LB Jamal Adams (knee), C/G Jordan Meredith (ankle), G Dylan Parham (back) and S Jeremy Chinn (back) are questionable.
The Broncos have won the past three meetings, ending a Raiders series eight-game winning streak. ... The teams have met 130 times in the regular season, but just twice in the playoffs. The Broncos beat the then-Oakland Raiders 20-17 on Jan. 1, 1978 to make their first Super Bowl. On Jan. 9, 1994, the then-Los Angeles Raiders defeated Denver 42-24 in a wild-card game.
The Broncos have won 10 of their first 12 games for the first time since 2015. A victory Sunday would ensure Denver of the tiebreaker if the Broncos and New England Patriots end up sharing the same record atop the AFC playoff picture, based on what would be a 6-0 mark against common opponents. ... The Broncos have trailed in all 12 of their games so far, and their nine-game winning streak makes them the first team in NFL history to have nine consecutive comebacks. ... OLB Nik Bonitto, who batted down Marcus Mariota's 2-point pass to preserve Denver's 27-26 overtime win at Washington last week, has had double-digit sacks in back-to-back seasons. It is just the sixth time in team history — and first since former Broncos OLB Von Miller did it from 2014-18 — that a player has reached double-digit sacks in consecutive seasons. ... Rookie RB RJ Harvey has four TD runs and four TD catches so far. ... QB Bo Nix has six comebacks in the fourth quarter or overtime this season. ... Las Vegas' Brock Bowers has 1,767 yards receiving and needs just 107 to pass Rob Gronkowski for third best for a tight end in his first two seasons. Mike Ditka with 1,980 yards and George Kittle with 1,892 are also within range. ... The Raiders' 17 passes defended by defensive linemen is highest in the league. Philadelphia is next with 14. … Charles Snowden and Maxx Crosby have intercepted passes. It’s the first time since 2001 the Raiders have had two defensive linemen with an interception in a season since 2001 when Chris Cooper and Darrell Russell made picks. … Crosby comes off back-to-back games with at least four tackles for loss. Only Myles Garrett and J.J. Watt have accomplished that since 2000. ... The Raiders have 73 run stuffs, tied with Cleveland for the second most in the NFL, according to Next Gen Stats. Those are running plays that result in zero or negative yardage. Minnesota is first with 81. ... A victory would give coach Pete Carroll 173 for his career, which would move him into a tie for 16th with Jeff Fisher. Carroll is tied with Bill Parcells.
Broncos defense. Denver has one of the league's best units, and it's going against a Raiders offense that is last in scoring and 30th in yardage.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby (98) celebrates after sacking Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/William Liang)
Denver Broncos running back RJ Harvey, is lifted by teammate Quinn Meinerz after scoring during overtime of an NFL football game against the Washington Commanders Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Landover, Md. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Outdated intelligence likely led to the United States carrying out a deadly missile strike on an elementary school in Iran that killed over 165 people, many of them children, in the opening hours of the conflict, according to a U.S. official and a second person briefed on findings of a preliminary U.S military investigation into the incident.
The bombing of the school and its casualties involving children has become a focal point of the war, and if ultimately confirmed to be at the hands of the U.S., would also stand among the highest civilian casualty events caused by the American military operations in the last two decades.
President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran for the attack, later said he wasn’t certain who was to blame, and then said he would accept the results of the Pentagon’s investigation. The issue took on added urgency on Wednesday after the New York Times first reported that a preliminary investigation found that the U.S. was responsible.
U.S. Central Command relied on target coordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the person familiar with the preliminary finding.
The agency did not respond to a request for comment.
The preliminary finding prompted immediate calls for more information from the Pentagon. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “the investigation is still ongoing.”
Both the U.S. official and the person familiar with the matter spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Dozens of Democratic senators demanded answers from the Trump administration on Wednesday as a growing body of evidence suggested that the U.S. was likely responsible for a strike at an elementary school in Iran that killed over 165 people, many of them children.
The letter from more than 45 senators pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on whether the U.S. was culpable for the strike and what previous analysis of the building had been done. The senators also raised concerns about the Pentagon hollowing-out a congressionally mandated office set up specifically to reduce civilian casualties.
“Under this administration, budgetary and personnel cuts at the Department have robbed military commands of crucial resources to prevent and respond to civilian casualties,” the senators wrote. Those include cuts at U.S. Central Command, whose forces are leading the military campaign against Iran, and the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which was signed into law in 2022 as part of a Pentagon ambition to reduce death tolls from strikes.
The revelation could threaten to erode public support in the U.S. effort against Iran at a time when Trump, who as a candidate railed against American involvement in “stupid” overseas wars, faces persistent questions about the purpose and of the conflict and what would bring it to an end.
One former Pentagon official said the Feb. 28 strike that hit Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School, which is located near a neighboring base for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, came as a natural result of changes made by the Trump administration to reduce staff to mitigate civilian harm and Hegseth’s emphasis on lethality over legality.
There are several indications that the strike on the school may have been avoidable.
It happened Saturday morning, the start of the Iranian school week, when the building was full of young children. Satellite analysis by the AP shows that the school, as well as other targets struck the same day, had characteristics visible from the air that could have identified them as civilian sites before they were struck.
The AP reported last week that satellite images, expert analysis, a U.S. official and public information released by the U.S. military all suggested it was likely a U.S. strike. That evidence grew stronger on Monday, as new footage emerged showing what experts identified as a U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missile slamming into the military compound as smoke was already rising from the area where the school was located.
Publicly available satellite imagery shows the school building was part of the military compound until about 2017, when a new wall was added to separate the two. A watchtower on the property was also removed. Around the same time, the imagery shows the walls surrounding the building were painted with murals in vibrant colors, primarily blue and pink, so bright they're visible from space
The school was clearly labeled as such in online maps and has an easily-accessible website full of information about students, teachers and administrators.
International law governing warfare bars strikes on structures, vehicles and people that are not military objectives and combatants. Civilian homes, schools, medical facilities and cultural sites are generally off limits for military strikes. The proximity of a school to a valid military target does not change its status as a civilian site, said Elise Baker, a senior staff lawyer at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based nonprofit think tank.
If the U.S. is found responsible, said Sen. Tim Kaine during a briefing with journalists on Wednesday: “It’s either we’ve changed our traditional targeting rules or we made a mistake.”
“If we’ve changed our traditional targeting rules and we no longer provide the same level of protection for civilians, that would be tragic,” Kaine said.
Some Republicans, too, are sounding alarms.
Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told reporters that an investigation needs to “get to the bottom of it,” and then “admit if you know whose fault it is.”
If the U.S. was behind it, Cramer said, the military must “do everything you can to eliminate those mistakes going forward.”
He added: “But you also can’t undo it.”
Congress directed the Pentagon to create the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence in late 2022 as part of the wide-ranging annual defense authorization bill, which passed both chambers with broad bipartisan support. The bill said the center was to “institutionalize and advance knowledge, practices, and tools for preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian harm.”
The measure put into law an initiative that had already been started by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier that year. The 36-step action plan was “ambitious and necessary,” Austin said at the time.
In April 2023, that office had a full-time director hired by the Army and an initial core staff of 30 civilians, according to a 2024 Pentagon report that said that the workforce was expected to grow.
Wes Bryant began working there in 2024 as the Branch Chief of Civil Harm Assessments. One of the things the office was discussing was updating the “no strike list,” he said, a series of civilian targets in other countries that the Pentagon keeps. When he was working at the Pentagon, it was well known that the list was out-of-date, he said. But under Hegseth, the office's size was slashed and the work on updating the no-strike lists stopped, he said.
“They have no budget. They're just sitting there trying to maintain any semblance of the mission,” he said.
Capt. Tim Hawkins, the spokesman for U.S. Central Command, denied reports that the military command only had a single person assigned to the mission but would not offer any further details, citing the ongoing investigation.
Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Konstantin Toropin and Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.
The arm of a deceased person is seen protruding from the rubble as rescue workers and residents search in the aftermath a strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)
Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble in the aftermath of a strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)
Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble in the aftermath of a strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)
Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble in the aftermath of a strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)
Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble in the aftermath of a strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)
