Las Vegas, Nevada - The Las Vegas Raiders are playoff-bound after beating their division rivals, the Los Angeles Chargers, in an incredibly dramatic NFL regular-season finale on Sunday.

The Raiders beat the Chargers 35-32 in overtime, punching their ticket to next week’s Wild Card playoff weekend while also ending LA’s season sooner than they expected.

This was a weird matchup in that both teams here would’ve made the playoffs if they ended the game in a tie, a tie that would’ve kept the Pittsburgh Steelers out of the postseason.

But alas, there’s usually a winner and a loser in these games but it took nearly seventy minutes of game time for the Raiders to get the job done.

Vegas jumped out early to a 10-0 lead after the first quarter, but the Chargers finally got it together and even held a lead before the Raiders found themselves back up by three, 17-14 at halftime.

Not much changed in the third quarter, but it was in the fourth where things got really exciting as the Chargers turned a 15-point deficit into a 29-29 tie as time ran out and things moved into overtime.

Time slowly ticked away in the extra period as both teams traded a field goal each. The game looked like it was heading for a draw but with 38 seconds left, Brandon Staley made what some are calling the worst timeout call of the season.

The Raiders smelled the win after that ill-advised time out ended and promptly kicked a game-winning 47-yard kick for the playoff-promising win.

When these sorts of games come down to the final seconds and one play gets a team the victory, the win is often earned off the foot of a placekicker.

In this case, it’s no different as the Raiders’ fifth-year kicker, Daniel Carlson (26) was in the spotlight, kicking Vegas into their first playoff berth since 2016.

He was the Raiders’ leading scorer in the game, so it was only fitting perhaps that he was the one who’d get the nod with his team’s season on the line.

Carlson finished the game with a perfect 5-for-5 kicking to go along with a flawless 2-for-2 in extra-point attempts for 17 points scored.

The Raiders have proved many naysayers in the football world wrong by qualifying for this year’s postseason.

By outlasting one of the league’s best offenses from the Chargers, they have just proved that they can definitely hold their own against most other teams in the AFC playoffs.

Vegas just survived an offense on Sunday night that averaged 29.5 points per game, fifth in the league.

Wild Card weekend is the first round of the playoffs it’s been where most of the league’s most historic upsets have occurred since the NFL has always had the policy where if you lose one game, you’re going home for the offseason.

The Chargers, on the other hand, will rue Staley's mistaken impression that their opponents were getting ready to "run the ball," as he explained post-game.

The Raiders open the NFL’s Wild Card Weekend on the road against the Bengals on Saturday afternoon.