Real Raiders football – football that actually counts – is almost here! The Raiders start their regular season with an across-the-country trip to New York/New Jersey, to play the Jets on Sunday, at 10am PT.
The Raiders have historically played poorly when traveling to the east coast and head coach Dennis Allen decided they would try something different this year, traveling a couple of extra days early, this week, so that the team would arrive and be able to settle in by Thursday evening and have the time to get more acclimated to the Eastern time zone before Sunday’s game.
The Raiders coaches hope that traveling earlier will help the Raiders players adjust their internal clocks and have more energy when the start playing on Sunday- historically, the Raiders have looked flat in games on the east coast.
Not only will I be watching the Raiders energy level, here are the other areas I will be focusing on when the Raiders take the field versus the Jets:
-Can the Raiders’ offensive line stop the Jets’ front seven?
The Jets have some concerns in their secondary but their front 7 projects to be one of the best in the NFL in 2014 and they are coming in with no real injuries to their starters at these positions.
The battle up front with the Raiders re-vamped offensive line versus the Jets 3-4 front will be a big piece of the story of who wins this game.
The Jets’ 2014 starting front 7 combined for 32.5 sacks in 2013, with the bulk of those coming from start defensive end Muhammad Wilkerson (10.5 sacks in ‘13) and 12 year veteran LB Calvin Pace (10 sacks in ’13). For comparison purposes, the Raiders 2013 starting front 7 had 27 sacks last year with no one player getting more than 6 (Lamarr Houston).
The Raiders have also put a heavy investment on their offensive line from last year and I do mean heavy. Reggie McKenzie signed Donald Penn at 340 lbs, to play left tackle, signed Austin Howard at 330 lbs to play right guard and drafted Gabe Jackson, who is a run blocking mauler at 336 and will be starting at left guard for the Raiders.
In all, the Raiders offensive line that will start against the Jets on Sunday weighs in at 40 lbs heavier than the unit that played the Jets week 14 last year, or an average of an extra 8 lbs per lineman.
As they say, “Big wins you a lot of matchups.” The Raiders have undeniably gotten bigger this year.
That size should pay good dividends in the running game, where the Raiders would like to dominate. If offensive coordinator Greg Olson’s plan comes to fruition, the Raiders will be able to pound the football against the Jets and get their rookie QB Derek Carr into a lot of short yardage situations where the Jets’ formidable defense is less able to unleash their sometimes formidable pass rush.
If the Raiders can get their run game going, it will make life easier for Carr in a number of ways. Not only will it help the down-and-distance gameplan that Olson and his staff are looking to win, but it will also open up more play action options in his playbook and let Carr see less all-out rushes on him, trying to bring him down.
The Raiders would like to be a win-in-the-trenches team and have put some focus on building up their offensive line over the last two years. On Sunday, we will get a first look at how the team has done this year.
There are some reasons to be optimistic. After all, the unit that will come out on Sunday, left to right Donald Penn, rookie Gabe Jackson, Stefan Wisniewski, Austin Howard, and Khalif Barnes, was the same group that blocked masterfully for Carr in week 4 of the preseason, where Carr carved up the Seattle defense and earned the starting role.
Preseason is not regular season, however, and the Jets will be gunning for Carr like the Seahawks were not. This will be a big test for the Raiders offensive line and a large feather in their cap if they show they can dominate against this defensive front seven.
-How will Carr look in his first start?
Speaking of Carr, he will obviously be a large focus for not only me, but of most of the people watching the game. Carr was drafted to be the quarterback of the future but showed enough intelligence, ability, moxie, and poise to be the first rookie QB to start week 1 in the history of the franchise.
The biggest question for Carr will be how well he does against a defense that is trying to gameplan for him and confuse him into throwing interceptions. Rex Ryan’s defense has historically been very good and confusing and confounding rookie quarterbacks.
The Jets have some weaknesses on their defense this year, however, at least to the casual observer. When the Jets lineup in a 2 safety, 2 cornerback set, their two starting cornerbacks for this week, Antonio Allen and Darren Walls, have 4 combined starts at cornerback between them. Allen is actually a safety on the team and started playing cornerback for the first time in his life only 3 weeks ago.
Behind Allen and Walls, the Jets have 1st round rookie safety Calvin Pryor along with seasoned 9 year veteran Dawan Landry. The Jets’ secondary looks to be a big weakness that the Raiders can exploit…as long as Carr is given the proper amount of time to throw.
Carr has, I think, a better chance for success than most rookie quarterbacks. Many of the high-picked quarterbacks that come out of college are taken for their fantastic size, arm, and potential. Because there are some advantages to coming out of college as soon as possible, many players come out after their junior year in college and they simply do not have sufficient experience at the position to read the field well enough in their first year in the NFL.
Carr, on the other hand, came out after his Senior year and having been a 3 year starter for Fresno State. He has played a lot of games and has seen a lot of different defenses in his time, including some very good schools that have pro-ready players, like USC.
Carr also comes from a football family and has been in and around football his entire life. He has talked about watching film with his older brother of 10 years, former 1st overall pick to the Texans, David Carr. He may be the rare rookie quarterback that is ready to face an NFL caliber defense and be able to understand the nuances of what he is seeing.
-Can the Raiders defense continue to gel quickly enough to stop the Jet’s offense?
When the Raiders played the Jets in week 14 of the 2013 season, they played reasonably well on offense even with starting a rookie QB, then, too: Matt McGloin.
McGloin completed 18 of 31 throws for 245 yards, 2 TDs, and an INT and Marcel Reece chipped in a great game at RB with 123 yards and TD on 19 carries in a 27-37 loss to the Jets.
If the Raiders can score 27 points (or more) again this year, they have a very good shot at winning this game. But not if the defense gives up plays like the 2013 version did.
The Raiders’ 2014 defense has looked very, very bad for many of the preseason games but seems to have improved as the weeks went on – either because they just needed to gel as Allen asserted or because the opposition was struggling even more.
The Jets do not have an elite offense. Second year QB Geno Smith should be improved over a year ago and their priority free agent, former Denver WR Eric Decker, are certainly concerns for the Raiders but the Jets’ backfield combo of Chris Ivory and Chris Johnson seems to have high boom or bust potential and the rest of the offense seems fairly pedestrian.
The Raiders will need to get good pressure on quarterback Smith, however, to be successful on Sunday because, like the Jets, the Raiders’ biggest weakness is at cornerback where free agent signee Tarell Brown has looked pretty bad and nickel cornerback TJ Carrie is a seventh round rookie.
In many ways, these teams are very similar with their strengths and weaknesses. Which brings us to:
-Winning the special teams’ battle:
A big reason as to why the Raiders lost to the Jets last year was special teams – the Jets were able to score a TD on a blocked Marquette King punt and take the score from 13-3 to 20-3, a 17 point difference. The Raiders ended up bringing the game to within 10 points so that 7 point special teams TD became very important in the end.
The Raiders have looked much more solid on special teams this year (I say this with my fingers crossed). Rookie TJ Carrie has also worked his way into the starting punt returner position and looks to be better, there, than anyone the Raiders had last year. Second year running back Latavius Murray has shown good promise as the kickoff returner for the team, also a position of weakness for the team.
Also, with greater depth all around on the team, the Raiders should look to have a more physical and better disciplined special teams unit this Sunday than the unit that took the field last year.
There is an old football axiom that coaches love to say: If your team can win two of the three phases of the game (offense, defense, special teams) than your team will win the game.
This is not always true, of course, but it’s a decent general rule in football. If the Raiders can win the offensive battle or the defensive battle and also win over New York with their special teams play, the Raiders can take the day and begin to prove the many doubters wrong.
For in-game commentary and thoughts, follow me on Twitter @AsherMathews
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