Oakland Raiders: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly vs. Chargers

The Good(ish): Laundry, Laundry, Laundry

Penalties have been a constant theme here at Golden Gate Sports this year simply because the Raiders are racking up so many of them. They’re racking them up at a near historic pace, actually.

Oakland came into the game with San Diego leading the league in penalties – naturally. They were averaging nearly a dozen a game, in fact. And these haven’t been the Raiders penalties of old where they’d get a flag for literally smacking somebody in the mouth just to make a point.

No, these penalties are for a wide variet of infractions – many of them simply mental gaffes. Of Oakland’s 49 penalties on the year, 19 of those have been of the pre-snap variety. A whopping 39 percent of their penalties came before the snap. Not good.

But against San Diego, the Raiders did a much better job of eliminating the penalties. Or at least, vastly cutting them down. Oakland was flagged “just” six times against San Diego for 36 yards. Those are significant, positive strides from the rate of flags they’d been accruing and yardage they’d been giving up as a result.

The one negative though, is that four of those six penalties came pre-snap. Often, you will see pre-snap penalties on the road in a loud, hostile environment. But the Raiders were at home and that shouldn’t have happened.

Credit Bosa and the San Diego pass rush for making the Raiders’ line flinch. Though Oakland, by and large, played a more disciplined game against San Diego, they will need to redouble their efforts as they get set to square off with another division rival in the Chiefs.