Oakland Raiders: A Few Questions That Must Be Answered This Offseason

The Oakland Raiders, coming off a down, disappointing, and underachieving year, are looking to put the pieces back together, but must answer several key questions this offseason.

It’s not just that the Oakland Raiders lost ten games this past season. It’s how they lost those ten games that makes the 2017 season even more appalling than it was — and it was already very, very appalling.

You could start with the fact that the Raiders had two four-game losing streaks at different points of the season. Or, you could point to the fact that in 10 games, the team scored 17 points – or less. The Raiders, in fact, scored 10 points or less five times in 2017.

And let’s not even get started on the defense.

In every phase of the game, the Raiders were outplayed, outwitted, and outcoached more times than you could count in 2017. It seems fairly safe to say that they were pretty much, a three-alarm dumpster fire on the season.

Though there are some solid, linchpin pieces on this roster, we can, and probably should, expect a lot of turnover as new/old HC Jon Gruden and his staff shake up the team and organization.

There are very few people on the current roster who should feel safe as Gruden begins taking a sledgehammer to a group that underachieved terribly in a tremendously disappointing 6-10 campaign.

What 2017 did expose though – or, rather, further highlighted – are the glaring holes that still remain on this roster. Yes, the talent level overall is way up. But that doesn’t mean the team doesn’t still have areas of weakness. Areas that need added depth. Or areas that just need better talent, period.

Any way you slice it, with free agency and the 2018 Draft approaching, the Raiders have many, many questions to answer if they hope to get back to the postseason.

Here are a few such questions…