Greetings Silver and Black Pride community! I am pleased to bring to all of you the 9th installment in the series, Talkin' With Tyvon, from Raiders starting strong safety Tyvon Branch.
Just when we thought that the Giants game was the worst possible game, we had last week's game with the Jets. Thankfully, Tyvon is man enough to come back here following the ugliness of that game to answer your questions.
The Community is invited to pose some questions for Tyvon in the comments section and he will do his best to get as many of them answered as quickly as possible:
Hey Raider fans....it was a tough week. First off sorry about not getting in to answer the questions. I will be sure to answer the questions for this week. It was a tough game Sunday. After the big win with Philly we should have played better. Hopefully we will be able to rev up the intensity this week and play well against San Diego.
TB
SABP: The loss to the Jets was the worst loss at home in franchise history. It's understandable that the defense would be discouraged by having to start the 2nd play of the game after a turnover backed up at your own 5 yard line. What are your thoughts as to what the game got out of hand so quickly and why the momentum of the Eagles game did not carry over to the Jets game?
TB: We had a great week of practice, and I thought we would come out of the gate firing. Things went south quick and it was hard to recover. When the Jets got that initial boost of confidence they put it to us.SABP: The Jets amassed 316 yard on the ground, an incredible figure, especially since they did what everyone thought they would do coming into this game, run. With the Raider defense in a one-gap set, it theoretically would be up to the individual player to maintain their assignments, execute and make tackles. From your perspective, knowing the Jets were going to run the way they did, what was the principle reasons for the failure to manage their run game?
TB: They blocked extremely well and through some schemes in there we had not seen before. We need to learn to recognize this quicker and adapt. No excuses in this league.
SABP: Once again you led the team in tackles. This is great from the perspective that the Raiders have a strong safety than actually can tackle, but not so good that you have to be making all of those tackles. Do you think at this point that there needs to be some adjustments in the scheme to better match the personnel the Raiders have and put the defense in a better position to succeed?
TB: The coaches continue to try new things every week. Whether you guys can notice them or not, there are some significant changes happening within the schemes. Right now we need to build on the positives and learn from the negatives.
SABP: You have Antonio Gates once again with your game down in San Diego just before the bye week. It would be great to go down there and get one back from them after the opener and go into the bye with a win and get healthier. How do you see the preparation for you and the defense for this game following the kind of loss you had to the Jets and knowing this is the 2nd game against the Chargers?TB: It is one of those things where we will watch film and learn. We know what worked to open the season and we will revisit some things and how they exploited certain situations. Going into the bye with a win would be huge for this team.
Thanks Tyvon and good luck down in San Diego.