Raiders preseason week two Ballers & Busters: Part two

The Raiders made a heroic comeback versus the Lions this week. You can see the evidence of that in the Ballers. You may see the evidence of why they were behind in the first place among the Busters.

Busters

T.J. Carrie

Carrie earned the right to work with the first team this week with his performance in practices and in the first preseason game. And then he came back to earth. With Chimdi Chekwa out injured, Carrie worked with the first team as the nickel corner and gave up the touchdown pass to end the second Lions possession. He had decent coverage but had the ball plucked over the top of him. He was also called for an illegal hands to the face penalty on the play which was declined. It was Matt Stafford's final play of the game. But things seemed to only get worse for Carrie with Dan Orlovsky taking over. After the Raiders came back to score twice and bring them within three, Carrie gave up a 23-yard catch on third and ten. It kept the drive alive and the Lions were able to maintain possession of the ball the rest of the first half while adding a field goal to go up 16-10 at halftime. Carrie took over on the boundary when the first team defense left. On the Lions' first 3rd down of the third quarter, he gave up a 7-yard catch for the first down. Two plays later, he whiffed on a tackle attempt on a screen play to Theo Riddick that went for 37 yards and set up a Lions touchdown to start the second half. They would regain the 13-point lead they had to start the game. He also had just one assisted tackle in the game. Carrie showed up big time in the return game with a 48-yard punt return early in the fourth quarter, but it wasn't enough to make up for his mistakes on defense. After doing nothing but impress this off-season and in training camp, Carrie was due for a performance like this. Live, learn, and move on.

Larry Asante

Like Carrie before him, it wasn't all bad for Asante. But when he made a mistake, it was a big one. Asante came in at safety to begin the third quarter. Three of his big mistakes on the day occurred on consecutive plays on that first drive. The Lions had a well-executed screen play and the first guy to have a real shot at stopping it was Asante. He had perfect position and was frozen in the open field while Theo Riddick went by him untouched and didn't stop until he had gone 37 yards and put the Lions in scoring position. On the next play, Asante missed the tackle on a short pass to wide receiver Corey Fuller who went 15 yards to the one-yard line. Then on the ensuing play, Asante was supposed to seal the edge to allow Miles Burris to make the stop inside. But he couldn't do that and Lions running back George Winn walked into the endzone for the score. He was later called for a facemask penalty to help the Lions add a field goal in the fourth quarter.

Jonathan Dowling

He too entered the game in the third quarter with the rest of the second team. On the first Lions drive of the second half, he was among a few Raiders who completely whiffed on that 37-yard screen by Riddick which set up a touchdown. On the ensuing kick return, Dowling was called for holding which had the Raiders drive starting at their own 11-yard line. After a Raiders three and out, Dowling gave up a 13-yard catch on the second play of the Lions next series. Then after the Raiders got to within three points, down 20-23, he made a pathetic tackle attempt on a 23-yard catch and run. The Raiders knew Dowling would need to add some weight before he was going to contribute as a safety, but the area he was supposed to show up immediately is on special teams. Even that seems far-fetched with his poor tackling.

Jack Cornell

He took over for Donald Penn at left tackle in the second half. And in that time, he gave up two hits on Derek Carr. The first was officially a sack and the second knocked Carr out of the game with hurt ribs and the aforementioned concussion, per Dennis Allen.

Tarell Brown

Last week's top Buster was worked again in this game. And it took all of two plays for it to happen. He bit on a fake underneath and left Golden Tate wide open for a 28-yard touchdown on the second play of game for the Lions. On the next drive he gave up a nine-yard first down catch to the Raiders 10-yard line. That drive also resulted in a touchdown. As one might expect, he did much better after that with Matt Stafford on the sideline.

Greg Little, Andre Holmes

These two took a tumble on the depth chart this week. And they yet again showed us why that would be. They had nearly identical numbers. Both were targeted seven times and each had two catches. Little had 49 yards receiving, Holmes had 41 yards. Each also had one good catch. Little pulled in a 38-yard catch from Carr to set up the touchdown. He was wide open for the catch and went out at the three yard line. On the following drive Little was called for illegal formation. The very next play, Holmes had a drop while also being called for offensive pass interference. Two plays later Little couldn't stay in bounds to make the catch, ending the drive with a field goal. On the final drive for the Raiders, Andre Holmes had another drop. Then a few plays later, he gave us his one really good catch when he plucked a ball on the sideline and tapped both feet in bounds. Two plays later, he dropped another pass. If you're keeping score, that's three drops for Holmes in this game. Two plays later, Little again couldn't manage to stay in bounds to make the catch. These two have been as unreliable as they come so far this preseason. It doesn't matter what they do when they catch the ball if 10 of 14 passes to them falls incomplete.

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