Oakland Raiders: Keys to beating Denver Broncos in week two matchup
By Kevin Saito
Keep Carr Clean
This goes without saying. Obviously. Nobody can win if their quarterback is either running for his life, or peeling himself up off the ground on every play.
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The good news is that they won’t be facing that elite Rams defensive front. Hard to contain a line that features Ndamukong Suh, Michael Brockers, and Aaron Donald. It’s almost to ask of any offensive line.
But, the path isn’t a whole lot easier in Denver, as they’re squaring off with a front that includes Von Miller, Bradley Chubb, Derek Wolfe, and Brandon Marshall. It’s a fierce, fast, top-notch defensive front, and Oakland’s line is going to have their hands full.
Which means that rookie Kolton Miller is going to need to continue playing at a high level. He fared pretty well against the Rams, allowing just a pair of pressures on his 70 snaps played. And on the other side, Donald Penn held his own fairly well.
Where the big problem was, shockingly enough, came from the interior of the line – long thought to be the absolutely cream of the crop in the NFL. In particular, it was guard Kelechi Osemele who had the worst night, getting beat on several plays, drawing dumb flags on others. It was easily Osemele’s worst game in Silver and Black. By far.
Oakland’s line, from Miller and Penn, to Jackson, Hudson, and Osemele, are going to need to step up, and play a clean, solid game. They need to be solid in pass protection, and they need to blow open some holes for Lynch and the backs.
Most importantly, Osemele really needs to play big, and show his rough outing against LA was a one-game aberration, and nothing more.
The backs need holes, and Carr needs time – and the line desperately needs to handle both better than they did against LA.