Oakland Raiders: The good, bad, and ugly in season opening loss to Rams
By Kevin Saito
The Oakland Raiders dropped their season opener to the Los Angeles Rams, which means it’s now time to check in on the good, the bad, and the ugly from the game.
That sound you heard coming out of the Bay Area last night was the Oakland Raiders imploding – before they crashed and burned in quite epic fashion.
For 30 minutes though, Jon Gruden, Derek Carr, and the Raiders put on a show. They played sound, solid football, and looked good doing it. When they went in at halftime leading 13-10, they stood poised on the precipice of shocking the entire world.
Unfortunately, football is a 60 minute game, and when the teams came out of the locker room after the intermission, it was more than clear that one team had made adjustments, and the other team – well – had not.
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It really was a tale of two halves, as the Raiders came out, and took it to the Rams
They held Los Angeles’ high-powered offense in check, and Carr was methodical and efficient.
The run game was working against that star-studded, hellacious defense, the defense was stifling, holding down what was the most potent offense last year, and they were making just enough plays on offense on their own, to stay in the fight, against what will likely end up being the toughest defense in the league this season. But, the Raiders hung with them, even taking a lead into the halftime break.
And then they came back out after halftime and looked like the 2017 version of the Raiders – except, maybe even a little worse. Which is a thought that should chill us all to the bone.
In that game, we saw the potential of what this team could be – which is a good thing. We also saw the flip side of what this team could potentially be – which is most definitely not a good thing.
There were some standout performances and some solid work. There were also some really dreadful showings, and things that happened during the course of the game.
There was definitely some good – unfortunately, there seems to be a lot more bad and ugly to sift through this week.
There’s a whole lot to unpack here, so let’s get started, and take a look at some of the good, the bad, and the ugly from Oakland’s season opening loss to the Rams…