Oakland Raiders: Keys to beating Denver Broncos in week two matchup
By Kevin Saito
Stop With The Penalties Already
They say that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. That clearly doesn’t apply to these Raiders who continue to hand out freebies left and right. They give up field position and yardage like candy on Halloween.
Las Vegas Raiders
Penalties have been synonymous with the Raiders for years. They’re usually up in the upper echelons of the league in that dubious category, if not leading it all on their own – which has been the case many times over.
One of the core tenets of a Gruden-led team is discipline. He’s always been a very strict disciplinarian. A guy who doesn’t tolerate stupid mental gaffes, and will get after a guy if he has a brain lapse. That’s Gruden’s style and one thing his reputation was built on.
And yet, all through the preseason, we saw mental gaffe, after mental gaffe. And now, it’s bleeding over into the games that matter, and it’s hampering the chance to win.
Against the Rams, the Raiders drew an astounding 11 penalties for 155 total yards. They gave up more than a football field and a half in stupid errors. Poorly timed penalties led to drives being stalled, or outright killed, or took very makeable third downs, and moved them out of range – or put the other team in range to put points on the board.
It seemed like for every positive play, they negated some of it – if not entirely – by drawing yet another stupid flag.
The Raiders absolutely cannot afford to keep shooting themselves in the foot and expect to win. No team can give up the kind of yardage in penalties they do and win consistently.
If there is a silver lining to be found, it’s that over the course of that disastrous second half, the Raiders were assessed just one penalty for 10 yards. Of course, that could have a lot to do with the fact the offense was only on the field for a little more than one minutes in that second half.
If they hope to give themselves a chance to win, this team needs to focus, needs to be disciplined, and needs to stop drawing flags by the bushel.