Raiders Game Thoughts

barrett · #1 10-09-2011, 06:54 PM

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.

WMH · #2 10-09-2011, 07:21 PM

Saw a stat on twitter earlier - JJ - 11 targets - 1 catch 9 yds. That's just not gonna get it done.

Special teams were pretty bad today too. Fake punt, blocked punt, terrible fair catch @ the 5, poor returns on KO and punts, etc, etc, etc.

Rough game. Easy to point the finger at Schaub, but there were many other areas of issues.

How about Vickers drop.....WOW. That hurt.

Nconroe · #3 10-09-2011, 07:50 PM

well, I think credit goes to DL of Raiders or blame a lot to OL of Texans. They disrupted our passing and checked our run game to where we abondened the run.

Schaub was only 24 of 51, sacked 3 times, 7 passes batted down, hurried a lot and failed on the money play to end the game with his second interception even though he had time.

You can knock JJ, but very few of the passes to him were catchable. He was double covered some, he was interfered with three times, although they picked up the flag once for some reason and didn't throw it another for some reason, oh yes, the ball was tipped and ruled uncatchable. Likely AJ may have caught four of those like 8 passes to JJ, maybe, we don't kinow for sure.

And penalties on kick returns didn't help our return numbers very much.

Walters, Dreesen, and Daniels and Foster did make some big catches.

Anyways, we lost. didn't play good in a lot of areas.

Lots of single plays one could pick out why we lost by many players.

So congrats to Raiders who played hard on their tribute to Al Davis game.

ok, I did quickly review those 9 targets to JJ, so here ya go
1 - tipped, high, JJ jumped up and caught it
2 - tipped, fell short of JJ by 3 yards
3 - 20 yard out on left, double covered, short, almost intercepted
4 - 10 yard out on right, held, flag thrown, unexplained picked up because hold was after 5 yards
5 - 20 yards down the middle, passed bounced in the ground
6 - Shaub chased about 15 yards running backward, throws to ground between JJ and Daniels
7 - Schaub throws to right deep corner of end zone, CB knocks it down, ppssibly out of bounds
8 - 20 yards to left, JJ held, no flag , ruled a tipped ball
9 - final play, JJ was past the safety, but ball flat stright to safety for int

you can say 1 for 9 isn't getting it done, the ball was not there to be caught , he might have only touched two of those, barely, they were not drops, or not through his hands.

hey, we had 21 first downs to 11 for raiders
473 yds total offense to 278 for Raiders
and time of possession over 34 minutes to 26 for Raiders and we lost.

barrett · #4 10-09-2011, 08:22 PM

My issue is not the 1 for 9. It is that schaub an JJ have played together for years and schaub still has no idea where he will be on any given route. This would indicate he runs bad routes. Especially since it is only with JJ. Plus nothing is crisp. He bends routes instead of breaking them off clean. Just very sloppy and lazy in how he plays WR. And the inconsistency was highlighted today because we had to count on him.

Nconroe · #5 10-09-2011, 08:26 PM

I agree with the rounded cuts , they should be doing better together after three or so years, but Schaub missed 26 passes today, 8 of those misses were to JJ, so 18 were towards other players.

I hope the injuries to Mario and Casey aren't season ending. We got pretty banged up today.

WMH · #6 10-09-2011, 08:41 PM

Devil is always in the details. Thanks for checking that out. Twitter reports can only get you so far.... I was at the game, but didn't remember that many targets, but did realize he didn't catch much.

WMH · #7 10-09-2011, 09:31 PM

Jabba's tweeting that BOTH Mario and Thor tore their pecs, and they're "hoping" they don't require surgery. More info to follow in the next couple of days, but this doesn't sound good at all.