Teams Oakland Raiders - The Black Hole

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Chewy316

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Not convinced Lee Smith goes to IR. They really like Smith and are willing to wait till late in the season if he will be available by then. But if he needs surgery, all bets are off.

Malcolm Smith I'm not convinced will be a loss. James played really well after watching the tape a few times yesterday. I like the addition of Riley as well, I'll be surprised if he's not a big part of the rotation beginning this week.
 

andana

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Derek Carr, quarterback, Oakland Raiders: Proving that last season's breakout was no fluke, Carr has steered Oakland to its best start since the 2002 squad that won the AFC Championship. With the quarterback delivering key plays in crunch time, the Raiders have won their first three road games of the season for the first time since 2000. Beyond the won-loss column, there are reasons to believe Carr has the most promising future of all quarterbacks drafted since 2014. He owns the NFL's lowest sack rate and the highest red-zone efficiency rate. He has thrown just one interception in his last 176 pass attempts and boasts a prototypical fluid delivery with a rocket arm. Add it all up, and Carr is leading a loaded offense that ranks third at the quarter point.
 

Chewy316

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James & Riley could be the answer to stop the run & TEs especially
Yes haven't been a problem the last 2 weeks. Went back and watched a bit of the film of the Ravens game, and they tried to isolate Joseph on the TE a fair bit. Used plenty of rub routes to try to get their TE open, but Joseph was able to get through them for the most part. They did a rub route on the 2 point conversion to get their guy open in the flat and Joseph went right under it and Flacco literally had no where else to go, resulting in Sean Smith's interception.

Joseph is going to be a stud.

As long as James plays on instinct rather than waiting for plays to eventuate, he is going to be a fine player in this league.
 

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GG.exe

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ALAMEDA — Marquette King has temporarily lost his normally sunny demeanor, looking as if he caught a punt off the side of his foot and watched it sail out of bounds at the 35-yard line.

It’s a day after coach Jack Del Rio said King had his best performance in the 20 games they’ve been together. King earned a game ball following a 28-27 win over the Ravens.

So naturally, reporters have questions. Except the King who is usually open, friendly and full of nonsense in casual conversation has been replaced by a reticent interview subject who would rather not talk on the record.

King begins to walk away, but is too good natured to leave without comment.

“I don’t know. I don’t feel like I played my best,” King said.

The exaggerations continue when he later says, “Bro, I’m one of the worst punters in the league. I’m not good.”

OK, so perhaps King doesn’t like to call attention to himself.

Except, of course, when he’s flexing his biceps in a salute to muscular referee Ed Hochuli. Or doing a Ray Lewis dance in Baltimore. Or wearing a green Power Rangers mask to the first day of training camp.

A check of King’s Instagram account finds him wearing a horse head mask in the days after he was fined $18,000 for a horse collar tackle, imitating a hummingbird near a back-yard feeder and also playing the piano, a hobby he picked up a year ago.

King said he’s never had a lesson, taking lessons on YouTube.

“I don’t know, man. I just do whatever I want to do,” King said. “I just like to have fun and I’m going to always try and bring the party with me. Turn up, man.”

Del Rio chalked up the Lewis dance to a generation gap, and said he was fine with King expressing himself as long as opponents keep ending up with their backs to end zone.

The Raiders host San Diego on Sunday, with quarterback Derek Carr, wide receiver Michael Crabtree and defensive end Khalil Mack among the headline grabbers.

Carr, however, mentioned “punter” as one of the Raiders biggest weapons.

“We’ve been in some backed up situations where he’s completely flipped the field,” Carr said. “He’s a different cat, Marquette. I tell him that all the time. But I love him.”

An organization that produced a Hall of Fame punter in Ray Guy and the NFL’s all-time leader in gross punting in Shane Lechler has a third punter performing at an elite level. King is tied for third with a 50.0 average and is second in the NFL with 11 punts inside the 20, with just three touchbacks.

Since the start of the 2014 season, King has placed 71 punts inside the 20 with just seven touchbacks.

“He has the ability to be like those guys, it’s just whether or not he can do it over that kind of time,” Raiders special teams coordinator Brad Seely said.

King is in such good condition the Raiders never brought a second leg to training camp.

“I’ve got to try and hold him back because he wants to take all the reps,” Seely said. “He’s still at the age where he can handle it physically.”

Long-snapper Jon Condo said, “Nobody will outwork him.”

Raiders rookie Jalen Richard feels comfortable returning punts in large part because he gets to practice with King.

“He punts this crazy knuckleball and when it drops, it goes like this,” Richard said with a zig-zag motion. “I’ve seen some dead balls, but nothing like what he does.”

But King is devout in his belief in both work and play, something Seely had to get adjusted to when he arrived with Del Rio’s staff.

“When I got here, it was like, ‘Do you think you need to do all that stuff?’ ” Seely said. “But I think that’s just him. It’s just his personality. He’s full of life, and he’s got a lot of questions about stuff — not just football. He’s got this wide-eyed view of the world that makes him fun to be around.”

Richard also finds King’s free-spirited attitude to be refreshing.

“He came in wearing Ninja Turtle slippers one day,” Richard said. ” I don’t know of too many punters who have personality like he does. When you’re around guys like that you can relax and know you can have fun out there.”

Condo and place kicker Sebastian Janikowski aren’t always sure what to make of King.

“Being older guys, married and having kids, he doesn’t relate to us in that aspect, There’s a lot of things he doesn’t think about,” Condo said. “But his personality, it forces Seabass and I to think in a younger mindset.”

Condo sees it as away for King to be at his best on game day.

“The things he does, it’s to keep him calm out there,” Condo said. “It keeps him loose and relaxed. He doesn’t want to be uptight.”
 

GG.exe

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Baldinger on NFLN succinctly detailed our defensive woes.

Example 1 he showed. Cory James, in a cover 2 play, is supposed to drop back and cover the middle under, instead he stood there and covered someone in the flat which the other CB had already got covered, leaving a wide open Steve Smith for big yards.

Example 2 he showed. A Titans run play, to our right, where we had Calhoun, Ward, Joseph, etc, there, and none of them could read the play well, or get off their blocks, we had more defenders there than they had blockers, but the play went for 9 yards. Saying "too many rookies on the field at once, all of them still trying to learn the game".

Example 3 he showed. Toss plays that a couple teams ran against us. Again, our LBs/etc, just stand around, slow to read, and not showing enough hustle on each of those toss plays, where the play went for chunks of yardage.

Example 4 he showed. Cover 3. We had seven players in the backfield, yet Steve Smith was able to find a zone, and then run thru all those seven players, not one of them even laying a tackle.

So...in conclusion...he's still concerned with our D, needs to improve a lot, players need to understand better, jell as a unit, too many rookies making mistakes and hesitant, things still going too fast for them.
 

Chewy316

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Baldinger on NFLN succinctly detailed our defensive woes.

Example 1 he showed. Cory James, in a cover 2 play, is supposed to drop back and cover the middle under, instead he stood there and covered someone in the flat which the other CB had already got covered, leaving a wide open Steve Smith for big yards.

Example 2 he showed. A Titans run play, to our right, where we had Calhoun, Ward, Joseph, etc, there, and none of them could read the play well, or get off their blocks, we had more defenders there than they had blockers, but the play went for 9 yards. Saying "too many rookies on the field at once, all of them still trying to learn the game".

Example 3 he showed. Toss plays that a couple teams ran against us. Again, our LBs/etc, just stand around, slow to read, and not showing enough hustle on each of those toss plays, where the play went for chunks of yardage.

Example 4 he showed. Cover 3. We had seven players in the backfield, yet Steve Smith was able to find a zone, and then run thru all those seven players, not one of them even laying a tackle.

So...in conclusion...he's still concerned with our D, needs to improve a lot, players need to understand better, jell as a unit, too many rookies making mistakes and hesitant, things still going too fast for them.
Yes the D is going to take time but things are certainly getting better.
I'm more concerned with the run D than anything else at this point. Jihad has been very bad but this past week he had a few plays where it certainly appeared that he was beginning to 'get it.' Same goes for Calhoun.

Things are getting better but we have a long way to go. That's no secret really.
 

Chewy316

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We have no idea how to have a comfortable win.
Shouldn't have been close, really. That being said, a win's a win. San Diego are a better team than their record, without a doubt. In the end, we made enough plays to win the game. Lots to clean up, but I'd much rather be cleaning it up at 4-1 than being 1-4 with our season pretty much over.

Teams that win close games more or less the majority of the time, don't do it because of fluke.
 

manureid

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Shouldn't have been close, really. That being said, a win's a win. San Diego are a better team than their record, without a doubt. In the end, we made enough plays to win the game. Lots to clean up, but I'd much rather be cleaning it up at 4-1 than being 1-4 with our season pretty much over.

Teams that win close games more or less the majority of the time, don't do it because of fluke.
Be nice to be 34-10 up in a game with time winding down. But 4-1... would have taken that every day of the week.
 

GG.exe

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Just a couple observations while I watch the replay....

Perry Riley is very good. Much better than what we had before. He reads well, and gets off his blockers to make good run-stuffing tackles.

Washington and Richard are practically identical. We'd almost be better off just using them 50:50, with Olawale providing support, and if we could, trade Murray for a pass-rusher from another team's back-ups that GM might think is worth developing.

I like how Del Rio is gaming the game. We're going for 2 pointers. We're going for 4th downs. We're kicking off deliberately landing the ball at the 1 so that opposing teams start their drives at the 20 instead of the 25 from a touchback.....so many teams are not utilizing this, good to see we are, thinking the game. Like deferring the kick-off, etc.
 
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