Greetings my fellow members of the Silver and Black Pride community! I am pleased to bring to all of you the 14th installment in the series, Talkin' With Tyvon, from Raiders starting strong safety Tyvon Branch.
For the 4th time this year, the Raiders had an opportunity to take their momentum from a victory the previous week and go for back-to-back wins. They failed miserably this past Sunday against the Redskins and Tyvon is still here answering questions despite this very difficult season. In case you missed it, Tyvon answered your questions following the upset win over Pittsburgh in Talkin' With Tyvon #13 here.
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. Tough loss against the Redskins this week. We have Denver coming up, and look to tie up the season series. It will be a tough game and hopefully we will come out on top.
TB
SABP: The game against the Redskins was very competitive for the first half, then Bruce went down and things seemed to unravel quickly. Did the team feel the wind kind of go out of their sails when Bruce left the game?
TB: No, I don't feel that had much to do with it. We had a ton of penalties and a lot of mental mistakes. Those really take the wind out of the sails, and make it hard to win ball games.
SABP: It looked like in the first half that the defensive game plan was very good with the various blitz packages that were being thrown at the Redskins. Then in the 2nd half, it seemed that there were some opportunities to make some plays, but the big play and missed tackles problem that has plagued this team all year appeared again. Can you tell us what happened in the 2nd half?
TB: It is really hard to say what happened. We obviously game plan for things like that not to happen, but they also game plan against us. I am not sure exactly what happened, but those are things we have to fix.
SABP: It looked like when Nnamdi went out that you had go over and play some corner. How was that experience for you?
TB: It was a bit different, but I have played it in the past. I was able to settle in and go over and try to help us win.
SABP: You have the Broncos coming up in Denver this Sunday. The Raiders have played well in Denver and can deal the Broncos a huge blow to their playoff chances if you guys beat them. The first game against the Broncos this year in Oakland the Broncos won handily, so how do you feel about this game and do you think there will be an aggressive defensive game plan for them?
TB: We feel quite confident in our team. We are playing some decent football, and know we can compete. We need to have the utmost intensity and just go out and make plays.
Thanks Tyvon and good luck in Denver this Sunday.
