Raiders Look to Bounce Back Against Dolphins
The Oakland Raiders will travel to Miami to play their first away game of the season, as they try and bounce back from last week’s 22-14 loss to the San Diego Chargers. However, like the Raiders, the Dolphins are also coming off of a season-opening loss, as Miami went down against Houston 30-10. Both team’s personnel is banged up a bit, but they look to put it aside and play a hard, physical game.
As for Oakland, their best return man and wide receiver Jacoby Ford is out for the season due to a left foot injury that’s been bothering him since the preseason. This is bad news, but with Denarius Moore coming back this week, and the promising rookies Rod Streater and Juron Criner playing well thus far, Oakland is content. Their veteran new signing, cornerback Ron Bartell, is also out for an expected four to six weeks with a broken shoulderblade. Nobody wanted to see this injury take place, as the Raiders need all the depth they can get in their secondary, as they will face quite a few elite quarterbacks this season.
On the flip side, the Miami Dolphins will be playing without running back Daniel Thomas after he suffered a concussion in the season opener. Thomas is the team’s primary third down back and also their consistent red zone rusher. Newly acquired wide receiver and the Dolphins’ most reliable deep threat, Anthony Armstrong, is inactive for the game. He was reported to have injured his hamstring earlier this week.
Playing the Dolphins shouldn’t be too bad, but the weather might be something to worry about. With today’s temperature predictions of 80 degrees, and mid 70’s for humidity, it’s going to be one hot day. Head coach Dennis Allen says he plans to rotate players often during the game: “Obviously when you really take into account the Miami heat, we’re going to have to do a good job with our rotation and keeping those guys fresh and keeping them where they’ll be at their best in the fourth quarter”.
The status of Pro Bowl long snapper Jon Condo is still unknown after he suffered a concussion in the season opening game against San Diego. In desperate need of a replacement, Oakland invited six long snappers to practice Tuesday and ended up signing Nick Guess of Tennessee to the team’s practice squad. If Condo isn’t able to play against Miami, the Raiders will promote Guess to the 53-man roster and snap against the Dolphins. Guess took a crazy and speedy way into the Oakland Raiders’ organization: “Since I live on the East Coast and the game was late, I watched on my DVR the next morning and saw what happened to Jon,” Guess said. “I got a few texts, the Raiders called about 3 p.m. I was on a plane by 6, in Oakland by 10, in my hotel room by 11 and on the field the next morning at 7 a.m.” Oakland hopes that Nick Guess will be a good fit, because they just can’t afford to mess up another three punts this game.