Oakland Raiders: A Few Players Who Must Step Up Against Baltimore

Marshawn Lynch

Well, there was no dancing on the sidelines in Washington or in Denver, we can tell you that much.

Lynch, who was lured out of retirement to play for his hometown Raiders, was the story of the offseason. The buzz and excitement surrounding him has been palpable. But, after a year away from the game that followed a terribly ineffective, injury-ravaged 2015 season, there were legitimate questions about what Lynch could provide for this offense aside from the buzz and excitement.

And a quarter of the way through the season now, we still don’t really have the answer to those questions.

The first four games with Lynch in the backfield has been a mixed bag, to say the least. Against the Titans in the opening week, Lynch was effective, putting up 76 yards on 18 carries. But over the last three weeks, Lynch has been – subpar.

Facing a Jets team in week two that’s giving up almost 150 yards per game on the ground, Lynch managed just 45 yards on 12 carries – an average of 3.75 yards per carry. But because the Raiders put on some offensive pyrotechnics in rolling up 45 points on the hapless Jets, it went unremarked upon for the most part.

In weeks three and four, the ineffectiveness of Lynch became far more apparent. Against Washington, Lynch gained just 18 yards on six carries in the blowout loss. And against Denver last week, Lynch struggled again, gaining just 12 yards on nine carries.

Perhaps even more telling is that against Denver, Lynch averaged just 1.67 yards after contact per carry, per Pro Football Focus. Gaining yards after contact is supposed to be his stock in trade, and yet against Denver, he didn’t go anywhere.

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Now, you can argue that poor offensive line play combined with squaring off against the first and second ranked run defenses played a big part in Lynch’s ineffectiveness on the field. And that’s not entirely wrong, of course.

But that doesn’t entirely explain away how Lynch averaged just 3.75 yards per carry and gained just 45 yards total against a Jets team that’s among the worst in the league in just about every conceivable defensive category.

With Carr out this week against the Ravens, the Raiders are going to be leaning on Lynch to play a bigger role in this offense. The run game must prove effective to give Manuel a little cover back there. And Lynch absolutely, positively, has to step up.