just frustrating that the Chargers always seem to escape against us at least once a year in comeback fashion and thank you refs for taking back that TD at the end of the 1st half…ugh…looking like it will be a good season though…if we play like that every week

During San Diego’s last two drives Ricky Brown was playing MLB and making defensive play calls. Morrison could have reaggrivated his elbow injury or come up with something new.

A B- grade for the passing offense is generous. The tide began to turn in the 3rd quarter when the Raiders stopped converting 3rd downs, and San Diego’s time of possession in the second half allowed them to start to pick apart our defense. While targeting multiple receivers during the night, Russell was only able to connect with Murphy, leaving Higgins and DHB with doughnut holes on the box score.

The good news is, if the Raiders can work out some of the kinks in the passing offense…look out!

seymour was only here 2 days and man can he play! the d looked great until the last play but seymour worth a 1 st round pick, o ya! this team will improve and so will the qb and wr’s . running game was good and blowing away the bolts d line was impressive! if they play like this and get better than maybe we can win the division!

in depth statistical analysis of the NFL games. For instance KA1Z3R how did you get the numbers on Matt S flushing Rivers- was it just from watching the game? I just saw on ESPN that the Raiders only sent more than two pass rushers twice (which is not enough) and it would be nice to know of a site to find this information.

And all the other info that can lead to insight, like rushing yards to the right, center or left, or pass completions from 0-10, 10-20, 20+ etc…

The Raiders finally have demonstrated the heart it takes to win. Ok, we lost the game, of course we had a TD straight up stolen from us and whomever made that decision will be reprimanded, that was a terrible call. I agree with the above grades on the team. Seymour as I stated previously would not need much practice to perform, he is a veteran football player. The D showed up, however, we should not have played prevent period, you can’t drop back 10 yards and not expect the ball to get dumped off. I mean that is the play for prevent, every play. However, no coach in the NFL seems to agree with me on that.

J-Russ is further behind that I thought he would be, he does not throw the ball accurately at all. Had he been able to do so, we would have scored over 30 points. I hope he can find his rhythm and accuracy, I would hate to lose games because our QB can’t look at the entire field and throw the ball accurately. All the physical attributes in the world won’t matter if he can’t execute the plays. And yes, we should have cut Jeff Garcia. So I am pulling for J-Russ to get more accurate.

All in all, the Raiders faired well, if we build on that and improve, go for the jugular and try to score every possession, we can really have a good season. This division is up for grabs and the Raiders want to see SD again. Go Raiders!!!!

Remember he is working with rookie wide receivers. Granted he struggled with his accuracy but I think some of the misfires can be attributed to the recievers being in the wrong spots.

His downfield accuracy was much better with Miller, whom he knows what to expect. I expect Russell will look better when Chaz returns. Also for whatever reason his accuracy is much better between the hash marks.

I agree he that he missed some open throws that cost his team, but the biggest positive was when it mattered most his throws were dead on. The pass to Johnnie Lee on 3rd and 15 and the bomb to Murphy.

The guy is poised. I expect him to look better next week and even better when Chaz returns.

seymour made from jay richardson and trevor scott…jesus. all in 2 days too. guy looked absolutely sharp.

“Perhaps it is a rule that needs to be looked at," Cable said. "If you had that play happen 20 times this season, 19 of them would be touchdowns. If you go to the replay booth, it’s supposed to be absolute evidence that it needs to be overturned. When you spend that much time in the booth, obviously it wasn’t that obvious.” Tom Cable

For as strongly as the defense played, they looked dismal in the two minute drill, on the final drive and when it counts.

Special teams was awful on both sides of the ball. Some of these guys are a bit rough on Jamarcus. Don’t get me wrong; i expect a lot more from him at this point. He needs to become the leader we need him to be. I’m not ready to give up on him though. Especially when he flashes why we love a guy with the weapons he possesses. That 4 and 15 play was brilliant. He should’ve followed that play up with a comeback to a guy to get out of bounds to give us a shorter field to work with and another shot at the game.

He’ll come along. As for the team and coaching overall, giving it away at the end like that is almost worse than getting spanked the whole game.

Russel missed more passes than he connected on. He has the talent, that bomb to MUrphy was dead on.

The D was great until the last 4 minutes. It actually looked to me like the Rob Ryan prevent defense came back to Oakland.

Overall the game was good, and a fairy good indicator of what’s to come. I hate to see Fargas not getting carries, but I think it is time to pass the torch to the younger duo. The 1+2 receivers are also rookies and were missing routes and dropping passes, especially Bey. When Shillens gets back it will look better.

You need to take into consideration that Jamarcus executed a gamechanging drive with less than 3 minutes left. On top of that, it was 4th and long that they scored to take the lead. I dont know about you, the past Jamarcus never could make that kind of play in that situation and that can onle be good for the Raiders. If the D could of stopped the Chargers on the last drive, we would be sitting here praising Jamarucus saying how amazing that play was instead of picking apart his performance and complaing about the overturned Murphy TD. That play was the exact reason that the raiders drafted Jamarcus in the first place. Sometimes it just happens that whoever has the ball last wins, time has to run out sometime. The bottom line is he gave the Raiders a chance to win at the end of the game and according to Steve Young that is what seperates good qb’s. Of course, there was some rough patches in the middle of the game but Jamarcus isn’t capable of flawless play for 60 mins. He is not Drew Brees and probably never will be. I would of like to see the Raiders implement the run further. They started off with robust running between the tackles and it started to trail off. The Raiders offense ran the ball the first qtr and the chargers team was barely on the field. The Chargers will have a hard time scoring if they are on the bench along with any other team. Maybe even more short passes to Mcfadden like screens or swing passes and checkdowns because he can explode for the big play anytime. On the first jamarcus pick, what an awful route by the WR, you have to come back to the ball. Most of the game the WR didn’t look too good and mixed with a few badly thrown balls it was a little painful to watch. That is why I would like to see Jamarcus to start the game with some short throws to the WR then go deeper. Jamarcus plays a lot better with confidence and you can tell that it incrementally goes up everytime he’s on the football field. After seeing the TD drive, he should have some success against KC and the Raiders will not have to play nearly as well to win that game especially if Cassell is injured.

Football is situational which correlates into the game being determined by a handful of plays. Right after the Raiders scored the go ahead TD, you have to think wow theres a lot of time on the clock and they might not get the ball back if SD scores. I would like to see Jamarcus be able to construct one of those 12 play 80 yard drives that ends a the game with 1 second left with the Raiders going ahead at some point, that is the mark of a good qb. This is the season where Jamarcus’s future will be determined because Al Davis isn’t getting any younger and his patient will snap. Inside of Russel’s head he must know he has to perform this year or his guarantee of being a everyday starting QB will be tested in the offseason.

 All that being said, the Raiders still have the potential for a good season especially if they can take advantage of the mediocre compeitation which includes the lowly chiefs twice, broncos twice, bengals, houston, washington, cleveland which are all possible victories in the making. If they go 2-5 against the dallas, eagles, jets, pitt, giants, chargers, ravens part of the schedule then they can finish with a winning record. The key is beating all the non-elite teams consistently because if they drop a few games to the weaker part of the schedule expect another losing year.

there were drops all over the field and the play calls were ridiculously simple in the passing game. u wanna talk about progression, well there was none. he had two people he could throw to every play and if the first one of them werent open, he was lettin it rip to the second one. he wasnt coming back to the otherside of the field cuz the coaching and plays didnt ask for it. also he was workin with two rookie recievers against a pretty good pass dfense.

we wont be able to call on him to win us games but he proved yesterday that he can definatly make the plays to keep us in the games. we gotta be competitve before we win and damnit boys, id say we looked pretty competitve last night

It’s shaping up to be an interesting year for the Raiders…Just clean up a little on offense and continue with the defense (a forced fumble on LT woot!!!). I cant wait for Sunday!!!

There are many things to take to heart about the Raiders’ first game, including:

• Discipline – the boneheaded penalties were largely absent from this game, in particular the ones that kill drives. That means Cable has improved team discipline. This team won’t get anywhere if it has the discipline of a bad high school team. The improvement on this front alone is very heartening.

• Tone – the boys played with smack in their hearts. They not only played physically but they dominated the line of scrimmage. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Raider team play with real menace.

• Zack Miller is a serious weapon. Linebackers can;t keep up with him, safeties can’t cover him. Until defenses start to double team him he will always be open underneath for 8-10 yards, and the guy can block too. We have Todd Christianson back – let’s utilize him moore!

• Russell is progressing, although he is taking smaller steps. not all quarterbacks can come in like Flacco, Ryan, and even Sanchez, and look polished, especially not with the disadvantaged Russell has had so far. On the udder hoof, he got away with a couple of really bad decisions, so his stat line cud have been much worse. Getting Schill back will help greatly, but we need a polished, starting veteran WR (NOT Walker) if we’re going to make this work, udderwise teams will let our WRs go and focus on the run and on Miller.

• Seymour made an immediate impact on D. as long as we stay away from injuries, this D can grow into something close to a Top 5 D by year’s end. I’d still like to add one moore run-clogging moose to add into the D tackle rotation.

• Special teams coverage needs moore cowsistancy but is an-udder area where this team may excel. Lechler, Sea Bass, and our return guys all look to be weapons, as long as the cover guys do their bit.

Clearly that was a game we should have won, and HAD won were it not for the officials. If they can take away TDs like that at will we might be in trouble, given the Leagues penchant for punishing the Raiders for Al Davis. I hope the team prods the League to look into the call and get some satisfaction.

Next up – let’s smack around those Chiefs!
:=8D

what really bums me out is that a good portion of the crowd (simular to what is represented hear) was willing to throw JaMarcus under the bus during the game. I was there, people booed late in the game when he called an audible, they were happy he got hurt and mad when Gradowski left the game. This team needs a stable qb that can get the job done but he needs this year and a stable crew of recievers, not rookies to prove himself.

first game of the season and we are already hating on JRuss wait and see what happens later in the season, he was playing with two rookie wide outs. and for the most part they all had an alright game except for the finally minutes of the game where they sat back and let Rivers see the field and pick his targets with no one in his face.

accuracy has to be a concern, however, it was the first game of the season. Now lets take a real look at what makes a QB accurate, it is his eyes and proper placement of his feet, his footwork. J-Russ is out of sync right now and plays off balance, you may not see it, but I assure every Coach does, his accurate throws come when his body is aligned properly. He will get better for sure, and he should get more accurate at passing on the run as well. What I liked, is the fact, he did not try to do too much, he did not try to force a lot of passes. That discipline alone will keep us in games.. Once this kid gets it all figured out he will be a beast, however, it will take a little more time to for him to do so. His foot work and his proper alignment will change his game, his release is high because he is 6’6", it will just take a little time. He will be much better as the season moves along, and if we keep playing this way, we have a real chance to do well this season.

Now, how about some WR that can run routes that get them open. It will come, but remember we have no seasoned vet on our squad, well, one, but he hasn’t shown up yet. Once our guys can work on getting off the line and making DB’s turn and go the wrong way, they will excell. J-Russ is doing ok under the circumstances, he reminds me allot of Plunkett, man Plunkett would look awkward them kill you with 3 touchdown passes. J-Russ has that potential and it will come in time, but he must play to get where he needs to be and he is our starter. I support him.

We do need to add some pass plays to the RB’s if we use all of our weapons we won’t have to rely on the receivers as much, ie. Colts, 49ers of the 80’s. So just be patient, we may not go to the Super Bowl, but we are well on our way to being a team that will be.

I wont lie I expected more out of russell than what we saw. But he is the qb of oakland so I just look at the positives for now. Its way too early to give up on him. As long as he continues to grow he will be just fine. Lets not forget that this was the first regular season game and this guy has the weight of the world on his shoulders… He does well in the clutch, we seen that. GO RAIDERS!!!