The Raiders defensive line is impressive and Crosby, in particular, is awesome. That said, in a game where Crosby was pretty dominant, Herbert & the Chargers still put up 32 points and 383 passing yards in a game the Raiders needed 70 minutes to win. Sure, they probably don't even win that game without Crosby's performance, but they now have to face the quarterback who, despite having a bottom third offensive line and is routinely pressured, is (at least by some metrics) the best in the league when feeling that pressure. Nothing is guaranteed, but this game is winnable even with a strong performance by Vegas' outstanding defensive ends.
Posts: 15,116
Threads: 221
Reputation:
147378
Joined: May 2015
Good points. People are assuming that the reason we struggled offensively in that game is the Raiders' pass rush, but the real problem was that this is when teams started bracketing coverage at Chase, and we hadn't adjusted yet.
The Raiders game was smack dab in the middle of a 5 game stretch where Joey B only had 6 TDs to 6 INTs with an 84.9 passer rating. We struggled against everyone...not just the Raiders.
We started moving Chase around and in the 4 games after that, Burrow had 11 TDs to 0 picks with a 134.9 passer rating.
This is why I predicted a 37-17 win in the prediction thread. It's not that I don't respect the Raiders. It's more that I know our team is humming now, and it wasn't humming when we faced them last time. They were limiting themselves by making Chase easier to cover.
The training, nutrition, medicine, fitness, playbooks and rules evolve. The athlete does not.