Oakland Raiders: Midseason Report Card For The Offense

The Oakland Raiders are halfway through the 2017 campaign and have been wildly inconsistent, to say the least – let’s hand out grades at the midpoint of the season.

The Oakland Raiders, now at the midpoint of the 2017 season, have put together what can only be called an “inconsistent” campaign. And that’s probably being very generous.

When the season started, nobody could have imagined that the Raiders would be tied with the Jets, and very much on the outside of the playoff window, looking in. And yet, sitting at 3-5 after eight games, the cellar in the AFC West, that’s exactly where they find themselves.

The problems on this Raiders team are numerous and they are glaring. And shockingly enough, they’re on both sides of the ball.

Coming into the year, most expected that the Raiders wouldn’t field the strongest defense in the league. But the conventional wisdom was that they didn’t have to be. They merely needed to be competent, because the offense would carry the load for the team.

Which was all well and good until the offense completely crapped out. The sixth-ranked unit in yards gained and seventh-ranked in points scored last season has absolutely tanked. Through eight games this season, Oakland is twentieth in yards gained and nineteenth in points scored.

Talk about a nosedive.

With the offense clicking, this team could afford to not have a dominant defense. But with an offense that barely looks competent some weeks and a defense that, at times, looks even more horrible than last year’s incarnation, it goes a long way toward explaining why this team is 3-5 and on the outside of the playoff picture looking in.

There is plenty of blame to go around, so let’s get to doing just that, as we hand out offensive grades for the first half of the 2017 season.