Raiders Game Thoughts

[barrett]

We are in big trouble.

Already missing AJ, Tate, and Ward, we are now likely to be without Mario and Casey.

This means on offense we become even more limited. What was once a very deep offense is now almost weaponless. The decision to not prioritize WR in the offseason looked like it would not be a problem because of our wealth of TEs and RBs. But right now we basically are down to AJ and Walter at WR. JJ is not any good. He cannot run a route. He is constantly rounding off his routes and it lands him out of position. He is relatively big but does not fight for the ball. And his hands are poor. But at least he makes up for it by being a bad return man. I will never understand why he catches the ball and stands still until the coverage gets there and then tries to laterally dodge them. I also don't understand how we employ a special teams coach who is apparently ok with this (and he is also ok with Manning continually bringing it out and not reaching the 20). But at least he makes up for it by making sure we don't cover on punts either.

Our play calling was terrible. We completely abandoned the run game with a full quarter remaining even though we were never down by more than a score. We also don't run screen passes anymore. Either one may have reduced the dozen plus times schaub was hit.

The good news is that the defense is getting better. Phillips did a great job mixing in Safety and CB blitzes today. We will need a lot more of that if Mario is out.

The DL was very good and held their running game in check. The LBs were very good as well. Ryans played by far his best game and Cushing was a mad man. Secondary was good as well. 1 TD on a missed tackle (from our one weak link) and the other from the quarterback breaking contain.

We need to run the ball this week because our QB may join the rest of our team on the IR if we try to throw it 51 times against the Ravens.

Here's to hoping AJ is back for Tenessee and our offensive line just had a bad day.