Oakland Raiders: A Few Keys To Victory Over Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Keep The Laundry Off The Field

And just when we thought the problem was starting to get better…

Football is an emotional sport. We get that. But it’s also a game filled with mental errors and gaffes. It relies on the judgement of a group of guys in striped shirts with – oh, how shall we say – eyesight that’s as questionable as their judgement at times.

Seriously – how is it that Khalil Mack doesn’t draw more holding flags? What has to happen – the offensive lineman has to physically undress him on the field?

Anyway… a week after racking up a season-low three penalties against the Chiefs, the Raiders decided to attempt to seize control the race for most penalties this season by getting flagged 11 times – giving up 117 yards worth of field position in the process.

The only consolation is that Jacksonville was flagged 13 times for 122 yards lost. But this shouldn’t be about what the Jags did or didn’t do. This is about this Raiders team and the sometimes undisciplined play and mental lapses that often lead to penalty flags flying.

And for the record, Jacksonville currently leads the penalty race – 65 flags to Oakland’s 63.

And of those 63 penalties, nearly a full third of them – an eye-popping 22 of them – are of the pre-snap variety. These aren’t effort penalties. These aren’t the “send a message” sort of penalties the Raiders used to be known for. No, these are penalties that are nothing more than mental gaffes.

This is one area the team has struggled with all season long and one it needs to clean up sooner rather than later. Though they avoided doing real harm to themselves against the Jaguars for the most part, we’ve seen several touchdowns nullified because of silly penalties already this year.

Against Tampa Bay, the Raiders need to play focused, disciplined, error-free football.