Oakland Raiders: Houston, We Have A Very Big Problem

The Oakland Raiders delivered a second straight shoddy performance, losing a divisional game to Denver, and dropping to 2-2 on the season.

The Oakland Raiders, like the Apollo 13 spacecraft, is suffering a major malfunction and total power outage. For the last couple of weeks, Oakland’s offense – thought to be among the league’s elite – has looked lost, punchless, and adrift in the vacuum of space.

Oh, if only Tom Hanks would show up and save the day – oh wait, he’s still throwing a hissy fit and boycotting football.

Coming into the season, Oakland’s defense was thought to be the team’s Achilles Heel. The concern was that defense was the weak link that could potentially derail the entire season.

While you’ll never confuse this 2017 Raiders defense with say, the ’85 Bears or the Ravens defense circa the early-2000’s — that debacle in Washington aside, they’ve been respectable. For the most part, anyway.

And against a Denver offense that hung 42 points and 380 total yards of offense on the Cowboys, the fact that Oakland’s defense limited the Broncos to 16 points and 298 yards of offense – and just 155 yards through the air is downright heroic for this defense.

The big problem for the last couple of weeks has come on the offensive side of the ball – something nobody thought we’d have to worry about when the season started.

To be fair, both Denver and Washington have very solid defenses. For the season so far, Denver is number one against the run, number ten against the pass, and fourth overall. Washington is fifth overall – second against the run and twelfth against the pass.

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But championship-caliber offenses – which many believed Oakland’s to be – find ways to move the ball and put points on the board.

But in two weeks against Washington, and now Denver, Oakland’s formerly vaunted offense put up a grand total of 382 yards of offense – 56 yards on the ground, and 326 in the air – and just 20 points. That’s not per game average, either – that’s a total for both games.

That’s an offensive output that’s anemic even by Cleveland and San Francisco’s less-than-lofty offensive standards.

The problems in Oakland’s offensive machine are numerous. You can start with Amari Cooper‘s inability to catch the ball – his seven drops lead the league and problems we all thought were corrected have come back with a vengeance. Though, to be fair, Cooper isn’t the only one dropping the ball these days.

You could also find plenty of fault with a running game that hasn’t been able to shed tackles or find any room to run – let alone create their own lanes. 56 yards on the ground – in two games – is terrible. And given that the lack of a run game makes Oakland’s offense one-dimensional, it’s all the more egregiously bad.

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You can certainly cast blame at an offensive line that’s suddenly become absolutely porous. Thought to be one of the best in the league, Oakland’s line has suddenly turned into – well – one that’s not one of the best in the league.

One of the league’s highest priced offensive lines can’t open holes for the running backs and they suddenly can’t seem to protect their quarterback. A line that gave up among the fewest sacks in the league last season – 18 for the entire year – has already given up nine. In four games.

And of course, you absolutely have to cast a critical eye at Derek Carr – Oakland’s $125 million dollar man. Unfortunately for the team, over these past two weeks, he’s played like a $1.25 man.

Against Washington and Denver, Carr was a combined 29 of 49 for 261 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions. He also took half a dozen sacks in those two games.

And although he threw for 143 yards against Denver, 64 of those yards came on one play – a long touchdown strike to Johnny Holton. Which means that without the Holton touchdown pass, Carr was nine for 17 for – 79 yards passing.

Now granted, he was facing two tough defenses, but they had plenty of opportunities in both games. To be the franchise quarterback most people recognize he is – and he’s being paid to be – Carr needs to find a way to win tough ballgames.

As a franchise quarterback, he needs to elevate his game the way an Aaron Rodgers, a Matt Ryan, or a Tom Brady does rather than wilt and shrink when the lights are the brightest.

To be fair, these two straight losses are not all on Carr’s shoulders. A lot of things went wrong in Denver (including his injury) and a lot more went wrong in Washington. And that’s on the team as a whole.

But, for Carr’s part, he wasn’t sharp, wasn’t crisp, and wasn’t able to move this team or put any meaningful points on the board.

Now, in the bigger picture, the loss to Washington and the loss to Denver isn’t the death knell for this team. This isn’t NCAA football where two losses more or less doom your entire year. There’s still plenty of time for this team to get right and get back on the winning track.

But, it’s more than obvious that this team has a lot of work to do – and given the recent offensive woes, a lot more than any of us ever expected. They’ve got some issues and some wrinkles to iron out.

This team can win with middle of the road to decent defensive performances like we’ve seen in three of the season’s first four games. But this team absolutely cannot survive with an offense that sputters as badly as Cleveland or San Francisco’s.

Suffice it to say, Oakland needs their offensive unit to figure it out and step up PDQ.

Two games does not necessarily a season make, but sitting at 2-2 after a quarter of the season is not where this team envisioned itself being. And the manner in which they’ve lost their last two games marks an even more disturbing trend – one that needs a serious course correction.

The Apollo 13 mission used the moon’s gravitational pull to sling the craft back to Earth. Likewise, the Raiders will absolutely need to use the gravitational pull of their own stars to right the ship and get them back on a winning track.

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