Oakland Raiders: Five most pressing questions that must be answered

The Oakland Raiders are heading toward the regular season with a lot of questions that need to be answered – here are a few of the more pressing.

Oakland Raiders head coach Jon Gruden has certainly been moving and shaking this offseason. Having brought in a ton of new faces, the 2018 Raiders are going to look vastly different than the 2017 squad.

Which, given how the 2017 squad performed, maybe isn’t such a bad thing.

At least on paper, the Raiders have upgraded the level of talent at several key positions – cornerback and the defensive line, most prominently. By drafting Maurice Hurst, P.J. Hall, and Arden Key, Oakland’s run defense and pass defense figure to be a far more effective unit – and provide Khalil Mack with some much needed, and long overdue, help.

Beyond that though, there are a lot of question marks still floating around.

Which, probably should be expected for a team that vastly underachieved and went 6-10 a season after making their first playoff appearance since the Pleistocene Era.

Gruden and offensive coordinator Greg Olson have a tall task in front of them if they hope to reignite an offense that was among the league’s most electric in 2016, but tumbled to one of the league’s biggest disappointments in 2017.

Defensive coordinator Paul Guenther has an even more monumental task in trying to turn around a defense that’s been at or near the bottom of the league in most major statistical categories for more years than we can even count.

It’s a defense that was so-so against the run, but absolutely atrocious against the pass, and unable to generate turnovers to help the team out.

And let’s not forget the job Rich Bisaccia has in front of him in turning a pretty porous special teams unit into an asset for this club.

Yeah, there are more than a few questions the Raiders are going to have as we barrel towards camp, and how those questions are answered will go a long way to determining how the Raiders fare in 2018.

In that vein, here are just a few of the more pressing questions on their plate…