Las Vegas Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce was smiling for the first time in 84 days after his side ended the longest losing streak of any team in the NFL this season by beating Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday night.

In front of a vocal home crowd, the Raiders triumphed 19-14 over the struggling Jaguars to take their record to 3-12 and allow the players and coaching staff to taste victory for the first time in ten weeks.

Quarterback Aidan O’Connell threw for 257 yards as the offence failed to give up a turnover in a game for the first time this season, and the quarterback revealed the relief at finally getting a win.

“It’s definitely a weight off the shoulders for sure and it was just fun to see the smiles again,” O’Connell said.

“I think guys just appreciate more than ever how hard it is to win. I’m super proud of our coaches, administration and players for just doing a great job.”

For Pierce, who has remained positive throughout the losing weeks, the post-match press conference was a chance to reveal his pleasure at snapping the losing streak.

“It was long overdue and it’s good to see all those smiling faces in the locker room from our players, our staff and everybody involved in the organisation,” Pierce said.

“Obviously you don’t want to go through what we went through the last ten weeks but that’s now behind us. I thought it was a great win, a great job by our home crowd. They were very loud, active and I thought that was positive, for our defence especially in certain positions.

“I’m very proud of this group, being resilient, blocking out the outside noise and playing for one another.”

If anybody was in any doubt as to whether Pierce had lost the Raiders dressing room, they can be sure the team are fighting for him and he was thrilled with the commitment of his players to ending the losing run.

“We had the win in Baltimore earlier this season and I thought that was a big win but from a team standpoint, we needed everybody and every aspect to step up, no matter if it was their first game being active or coming back,” Pierce said.

“All these guys poured their heart into it and I loved that they stayed positive through all the ups and downs of the game.

“It feels great to stop talking about losing. It’s all about winning and that was the song that was playing when we walked into the locker room. It’s always a good feeling because you put in all this work and you’ve had repeated losses but you put it all to the side when you watch this victory.

“Like I told this gentleman in there, it’s all about us and it doesn’t matter about the outside noise.”