Oakland Raiders: The good, bad, and ugly from preseason win over Seahawks
By Kevin Saito
Bad: Defense
Yeah, yeah, yeah – it was preseason game. We get it. And most of the starters weren’t even suited up for the game. Got that too.
Even still, the defensive performance Oakland’s scrubs put on display against Seattle was, in a word, horrific.
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After three games where the starters did a good job locking things down, and the subs came in and mopped up, the subs – many of whom, were on the roster bubble and desperately needed to shine – threw up a stinker of a defensive performance that only Ken Norton Jr. could love.
Against an offense of anonymous, no-namers, guys who won’t be on the roster after tomorrow, and other assorted riff-raff, the collection of the same players Oakland fielded, gave up 24 first downs – 13 passing – and 449 total offensive yards.
449. It really was a Norton-esque defensive performance.
The twin terrors of Austin Davis and Alex McGough tore up Oakland’s secondary for 318 yards and a pair of touchdowns – Davis burning the already cut Raysean Pringle for an 81-yard touchdown bomb.
They also gave up 131 yards on the ground. More concerning than that, is that Seattle – which hasn’t had an offensive line or a decent running game to speak of for a while now – racked up those 131 yards while averaging a crisp, efficient, five yards per carry.
Defensively speaking, there was absolutely nothing to like about Oakland’s performance last night. They didn’t have a good pass rush, their run defense had more holes in it than a cheese grater, and their pass defense was about as solid as Jello – before you cool it.
Thankfully, it was the preseason, and most of these guys won’t be on the roster. But, the Raiders have some work to do defensively speaking, and need the backups they do keep around, to perform at a high level – and not like they did against Seattle.