It's a great point you bring up in that it's early in the year. As opposed to Miami who could get more solidified with their OLine later in the season, you have to figure that getting the Raiders early will even this game. Getting them in week 14 or so when they're typically spiraling towards another top 5 pick (like last year) is a different game altogether. We got the Bucs best game last opening game as they proceeded to lose faith in their coach as the season progressed (or regressed, in their case). The Jets are going to get their best. One good thing to remember is that Schaub will be starting. We can all think back to Rex' first game as a HC here where he threw tons of different coverage disguises and forced Matt to hold the ball forever while blitzes rocked him. Rex has all summer to prep for him. And if the rookie starts, all the better. I also think the Jets need to come out throwing as that secondary is new and not tested.
Wasn't Sanchez' first game (and first victory) as a NY Jet against Schaub? And then Mark's great 4th qtr comeback against Schaub as well? Schaub can't be too happy playing his first game as a Raider against the Jets and Rex Ryan.....bad memories......even without Sanchez.
"We're gonna run the ball, run the ball, then run it again, until the defense stops us," Raiders offensive tackle Donald Penn told SiriusXM NFL Radio on Monday. I really hope they try to employ this strategy week 1...
Remember that game a few years back when the Raiders ran it the first 19 plays of the game? That was obnoxious. _
Heh, that was more than a few years back, that was a few coaches back with Herm's Bend But Don't Defend Tampa 2 clusterfuck of a defense.
Much as we're all enjoying the ability to play an untested Raiders team, remember we could be starting 2 rookies in our secondary as well, against a QB that has made the pro-bowl twice (ours obviously has not). The biggest things we have in our favor is a home game (obvious) and that it is a west coast team coming east and playing at 1pm (2007-2011, teams in that scenario won just 26% of road games, as an example). Considering it's the first game of the year, though, you figure the Raiders are smart enough to start practicing for 10am starts all August. All that aside, the last thing we want to see is Calvin Pryor having his first "Welcome to the NFL moment" when Schaub pump fakes him off in one direction & fires a bomb over his head. I'm optimistic that we can stop the run. We're going to need a really good rush from the DL to stop the pass, as it'll probably take us a number of weeks to really get solid as a defensive backfield. Sometimes it take half a year to develop chemistry back there, so while we have high hopes for Pryor & McDougle, we need to temper the optimism. They are still 2 rookie DB players, and we know that it took Milliner about 10 games to really 'settle' in the NFL. On the offense, I'm also cautiously optimistic that we can have a good game. We have so much more talent than we did at times last year. Not that we're the Broncos or anything, but we were so bad, just with Decker, Amaro, CJ1K and a year-older Geno, we should be able to put up some yards at home. It's the Jets, so I'm never THAT optimistic about us winning any one game, but I could see a nice 24-14 home win. I'd sign up for that, no problem.
The only rookie in the secondary I can see starting in week one is Pryor. It's a fairly safe bet that Patterson will be the early starter at CB2, although I have my hopes up that McDoodoo is a quick study. Excellent post, though. Can't disagree with the rest.
If McDougle becomes a good starter, will he graduate from McDoodoo to McBugel? I also see Walls and Dowling being ahead of MC Doogie Howser for the time being. Yeah, I don't see that working very well for them.
You're looking at the name all wrong. "McDoodoo" can definitely be a derogatory term. But, hey, if he lights it up, he's the motherfuckin' McDOODOO! (the shit) This is the name that keeps on giving.
Not sure how to feel about this game. With Schaub and Mojo/DMC, I can easily see Oslon calling for lots of short passes to open up the running game. Hopefully, our secondary will be ready to take advantage of it, and shake up Schaub's confidence. Despite all the uncertainty, I'm really looking forward to it.
Raiders have too many new parts to be a huge threat early in the year, they've essentially grabbed a new player from each team in the league plus they have a ton of young guys who haven't shown much of anything We bring back pretty much our entire core(Cro, Howard and Tone are gone) but we've upgraded a ton of areas with guys who will fit in well(Decker, Johnson, Giacomini, Pryor and Patterson) and we're deeper, better coaching, faster, stronger, everything Also Geno finished the year strong and looks like a completely different guy this year than he did at this point last year and he's probably not even scratching his surface as a player
Good points. They will hardly be a cohesive group. That's a bad recipe going up against Rex' defense. I have to say our opening game could me a much worse matchup. I'll take it seeing the first half vs those passing offenses.
