Raiders week 6 Bollocks vs Seahawks

London is a brilliant city. But it’s just as well the Raiders keep away. Sunday the Silver & Black took to the pitch at Wembley stadium for a football match with the Seattle Seahawks. The 12th man had a strong presence at Wembley despite it being labeled as a ‘home’ game for the Raiders, replete with provided Raider Nation flags for the crowd. The Raiders didn’t give them any reason to wave those flags in this game.

The Seahawks came out firing, moving the ball down the field with ease. The Raiders came out flat, getting nowhere on the ground and under attack through the air. The game was over by halftime for the second week in a row. And by the started of the fourth quarter, the Seahawks lead was at 27-0.

For a travesty such as this, there needed to be a twist on the usual weekly format. Instead of Ballers – for which there were none -- & Busters, in British style, this week will be called simply…

Bollocks

Jon Gruden

What was considered a potentially competitive team with some promise in the offseason is an empty shell now. The luster wore off when Gruden traded Khalil Mack prior to the opener, and the tarnish from the first few weeks has now turned to an aggressive rust. The Raiders are crumbling.

Gruden doesn’t seem to know how to use Marshawn Lynch. He goes from not giving him the ball at the goal line last week to forcing it to him on the first three plays for a net of one yard.

Derek Carr was supposed to return to his 2016 MVP level play under the tutelage of QB mastermind Gruden. He has looked as bad as he has ever looked in his career, adding league leader in interceptions to his resume. He didn’t have one in this game, but threw for just 142 yards with 140 of those yards coming after the catch. Last week he was too aggressive. This week, he’s back to dinks and dunks.

Hard to blame Carr for all the quick passes with the protection issues the Raiders are having. He was sacked six times in this game. That’s ridiculous. From day one Gruden has forced top pick tackle Kolton Miller into action. First forcing Donald Penn to play out of place at right tackle, and now despite a knee injury that is clearly making him a complete liability. It was entirely irresponsible to put this team in the position where their best options at tackle are a small school third round rookie at one tackle spot and an injured project rookie at left tackle.

The pass defense has been the worst in football. They can’t find any pass rush since trading away the best pass rusher in the league, and the only answer Gruden and Guenther can come up with is to bench Gareon Conley and Rashaan Melvin. The corners are all struggled because they can’t do it alone. They can’t follow the receivers forever while the quarterback stands around scanning the field as long as he likes. At one point in this game, Russell Wilson fumbled the snap and had time to chase down the ball, reset, step up and throw a touchdown pass. He was never threatened.

A team that should be showing improvement each week under a new head coach has regressed week after week. Their loss last week to the Chargers was their worst of the season when they most needed to show something. That terrible performance led to a much worse one. Even with a bye week and three 1-win teams in the next four games, there is little reason to hope they can be any more competitive even against those teams.

Kolton Miller

The second week in a row Miller has given up three sacks. Technically, he gave up four sacks, but one was wiped away due to a facemask penalty. Yeah, he shouldn’t be playing with his injury, but he is. And as such, his performance is judge. It was terrible. His first sack allowed was a strip sack. He had a great chance to fall on the fumble, but blew it. The Seahawks recovered at the Raiders 24 and scored their second touchdown in three plays. To begin the second half, Miller gave up two sacks in a row. The second was another strip sack at the Raiders’ 11-yard-line and the field goal gave the Seahawks a 20-0 lead.

Derek Carr

His longest pass went for 21 yards and it was a dump to Jalen Richard who got almost all those yards after the catch. Carr also threw low for Amari Cooper over the middle allowing him to hit hard and knocked out of the game, behind Jordy Nelson on third and six with room to scramble for the first down. And of course, though he didn’t throw a pick, he had two fumbles.

Tahir Whitehead

On the Seahawks’ first drive alone, Whitehead was blocked on a 24-yard screen, called for holding in the end zone to put them in first and goal at the one, and then gave up the 5-yard touchdown catch. He has six tackles, but was basically a non-factor.

Jon Feliciano, Justin Murray

Feliciano only played for a couple drives before leaving with a rib injury. In that time he gave up a tackle for loss on third down, was flagged for holding that called back a 28-yard catch by Amari Cooper, and gave up a pressure leading to an incompletion. Murray replaced him and it isn’t entirely his fault because he is the team’s backup tackle who was asked to step into the guard position two weeks ago.

Murray’s first drive in the game, he gave up the sack on third down to end the scoring chance and back up the offense seven yards where Matt McCrary missed the 48-yard attempt. His next drive, he gave up a hit on Carr followed by not getting in place to block on a screen play that was stopped for no gain. Carr was sacked twice on his final possession and Murray gave up one of those sacks.

Daryl Worley

Gave up 3 catches for 100 yards and a touchdown. He had an interception off a deflection from Erik Harris.

Johnny Townsend

Townsend had two horrible punts in this game of 28 and 27 yards. His other punt traveled 37 yards to give him an average of 30.7 yards per punt.

Honorable Mention

Arden Key – Got his first sack as a pro. He also had a run stop and a pressure on third and 7 to hold them to a field goal in the third quarter.

Jalen Richard – Led the team with 7 catches for 48 yards including a 21-yard catch and run on third and 20.