Oakland Raiders: Keys to beating Denver Broncos in week two matchup
By Kevin Saito
The Oakland Raiders travel to Mile High to take on their arch-nemesis in an important divisional showdown – let’s look at a few keys to a Raiders win.
Despite the lopsided score, the Oakland Raiders fared relatively, kinda, sorta well against the LA Rams in the season opener. Stop laughing.
Look, nobody expected the Raiders to beat the Rams. Nobody expected them to even put up much of a fight, really. And if all you do is look at that final score of 33-13, you might walk away thinking you were right.
You couldn’t be more wrong though, because the numbers don’t always tell the truth. Or at least, they don’t always tell you the full story.
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In this case, the season opener with the Rams was a tale of two halves. The Raiders opened that game with a crisp, 75-yard touchdown drive that had the Rams back on their heels. They mixed in some power rushing with Marshawn Lynch leading the way, and Derek Carr was sharp, efficient and determined.
Given the collection of talent the Rams put together this offseason, the Raiders shocked the world by looking pretty dominant in that first half. They outgained the Rams in yardage, 254-98 yards, held the ball for more than 20 minutes, and stymied the league’s highest scoring offense for the first half, looking smooth, polished, and in control.
If they could have ended the game at halftime, the Raiders would have pulled off an absolute stunner. Unfortunately, they didn’t, and the final 30 minutes was a mirror image of the first 30, with all of the stats more or less flipping the Rams’ way.
It was more than clear that LA made some key adjustments, and the Raiders didn’t. And as a result – along with some poor play by Carr – the Rams scored 23 unanswered points, and LA blew Oakland right out of the water.
Carr didn’t help the cause, of course, but some of the failure needs to be pinned on Jon Gruden and Paul Guenther for failing to adjust.
But, we’re on to a new week now, and the Raiders have another chance to right the things that went wrong in week one. And they have a prime chance to do it against a very heated divisional opponent.
Winning divisional games are the key to the playoffs. Gruden knows this. He’s lived it. Understands just how important they are. And this will be his first test to see if this Raiders team is ready to compete in a wide open AFC West.
The rivalry between the Broncos and Raiders is legendary, but the Raiders hold the edge in the all-time series. Let’s take a look at a few keys to Oakland’s widening the gap between the two teams all-time…