Las Vegas Raiders Thread

I'd like to see Renfrow given a chance but as you say he is a legacy player. Whats concerning me though is that we seem to be using Foxboro as a recruiting Centre, thats not necessarily a bad thing but an overdependance on the Patriots is a little hard to stomach, well for me anyways. Tuck Rule n all that!!!

I'm feeling very apprehensive about the draft. Ziegler and McDaniels are an unknown quantity as regards drafting, having had no picks in the first two rounds last year after the Adams trade. I am uneasy though, when it is abundantly obvious that the team can't make any progress until the defence is sorted out, that McDaniels may seek to copy Gruden and use a high pick on an offensive player such as a quarterback/o-lineman/tight end, that may be of little help to the team this year.

Facing Mahomes,Herbert and Wilson in their own division and having recorded one of the lowest sack totals in the league last year, relying solely on Maxx Crosby again won't work (unless Chandler Jones has a revival year) and neither will drafting a de or lb in the 4th round or later and hope they develop as Crosby has done. Trading up into the top 5 and picking a quarterback, and giving up your top picks this year and next for a player that won't play for a year or two, also stinks as an idea.

At this stage I'd grab Carter if he was still on the board, red flags and all. If they trade back, I'd only be prepared to go back 3-4 places, as we already have 12 picks(mostly on day 3), but there is a limit to how many rookies will make the 53 man roster.

So its defence, defence, defence for me. I'll also be waiting to see if rumours of draft day trades involving Josh Jacobs or Hunter Renfrow come to anything

If they do make a trade I hope its for a corner back, Porter would be a good addition.

Aidan O'Connell looked calm and composed on Sunday, could be the back-up this season ahead of Hoyer if he keeps developing like this. Very impressed with the second string defense also, a lot more intensity, pressure and communication shown in one pre-season game than in most of last year's regular season!

I'm almost afraid to be optimistic but Jacobs signing definitely makes the Offense a lot better. We will go as far as the Defense and Jimmy G's health takes us but I think he is a decent QB and he seems very assured in his role (Unlike a lot of Raider forums, I refuse to compare him to "He who cannot be named"!! LOL). Roll on Denver, I say.

Yep, the schedule is pretty brutal so 7+ wins would be a really good season. It's some turnaround with the roster - only 14 players remain from the pre-Ziegler/McDaniels era so the pressure will start to mount on them if the next couple of seasons are disastrous.

It certainly looks like we have a really good WR corps this season. Not much showing from the TE's to date and Jacobs looked rusty but I'll take that result every day of the week and twice on Sunday! Defense played well in the second half. So we sit atop the AFC West! Away to Buffalo next week. I'm saying it now, I'm not expecting much from this. They will be furious with the Week 1 result and will be looking to take it out on us. I'll be looking for encouraging signs from the team as opposed to a result.

Unfortunately the defense looked like it had stayed in Vegas, no penetration up front and blown coverages in the back field. More surprisingly was the lack of control on the offensive line, which meant the running game never got going and we had nothing after the first drive of the game. The next two games could make or break this season - I can see the likes of Renfrow getting traded before the deadline considering his lack of opportunity.

Lads, I watched the game on Sunday night and we were awful. This is a team that seems to have no ideas offensively. Its hard to believe that Josh Jacobs led the league last year in rushing. Even with his holdout, I would expect a better effort from him. The line just never seemed to have any success with run blocking. Jimmy G seems blind to Hunter Renfrow, which means if Myers and Adams are not achieving separation he seems to have no options. Play-calling seems stale and unimaginative. Defensively we made Pittsburgh look good, and I shudder to think what Herbert and the Chargers receiving Corps are going to do against us.

If we go down against the Bolts, I expect that Adams will look for a trade (probably Jacobs and Crosby too) and if that happens then McDaniels is a dead man walking. 

Yes, the O-Line was terrible, Mack was putting pressure on from both sides of the line and nobody seemed able to block him. We beat ourselves again - Crosby had a strip sack on the Chargers first drive cancelled because one of our defensive backs (Long?) decided to line up on the Chargers side of the ball, that cost us 7 points. Tillery cost us another chunk of yardage with a braindead hit on Herbert when he was off the pitch and then Tillery was ejected. The defense stood up in the second half and played the best I've seen from a Raiders defense in years but the offense couldn't closed the game out. McDaniels play calling has to be a problem here, he didn't help O'Connell with some of the calls, especially the last one that was intercepted - why not give 1st and goal to Jacobs to run up the middle rather than call a pass play with a high level of difficulty? We had basically four downs to get the touchdown, no need to panic!

Yep, I agree about O'Connell, he took a while to get to grips with the speed of the game and both fumbles came from holding on to the ball too long. But that's not surprising coming from a minor college into the NFL, no matter how well he played in pre-season. The play calling should have been a lot better for him in the first half. O'Connell got a lot better in the second half, particularly on the last drive until that interception! It is going to be a long season, big game on Monday now.

Well that was a relief I suppose! The defense really stepped up last night and I can't remember the last time we got multiple interceptions in a game, good to see that we weren't hampered by the loss of Bennett and Hobbs. The big worry though is still the offense, we still haven't scored 20 points in a game and the OLine looked really porous. We're still not using our wide receivers/tight ends properly and the running game still hasn't got going. However, playing the Patriots next could(!) kick-start the points scoring.

Another game where the defense pulled us out of the mire. The offensive issues keep growing and now Garoppolo could be out for a stretch - do we trust Hoyer or put O'Connell back into the firing line? One positive result of Hoyer coming in was to take the pressure off Jacobs as the Patriots had to keep their safetys deep to defend the deep pass and that gave Jacobs a bit more room to run. McDaniels play-calling during the two minute drill at the end of the first half was awful - no urgency, no belief that we could score a touchdown, no imaginative plays, nothing...

Well as only we know, the Raiders can still win and keep their fans depressed at the same time!!! In one sense, I'm hoping that these wins, where we stumble to victory against teams that are playing as bad as us will help to fix the problems so that we are better prepared when the better teams face us. And funnily enogh, our schedule does not look as bad PROVIDED we can fix those issues. I'll preface this by saying that THIS PROBABLY WONT HAPPEN!!! So Chicago is a winnable, especially if Fields is out (if he is back he wont be 100%). Detroit in Detroit is a loss. Giants at Vegas is winnable, So is Jets in Vegas. Miami at Miami is a loss. And so is the Chiefs. So is the Vikings. Chargers at home is winnable. KC at Arrowhead is a loss. But the Colts is winnable and so is the Broncos at home. So we MIGHT crawl to 9 wins, which would better than I thought we would do. Of course what will actually happen is that we implode and only win 1 more game and that would be Denver at home!!!! It all depends on the Defense being competitive which they seem to be now, and the Offense being better. McDaniels needs to stop calling the plays. End of.