Oakland Raiders: A few keys to week six win over the Seattle Seahawks
By Kevin Saito
Avoid Stupid Mistakes
Stupid mistakes, mental lapses, brain freezes – or whatever you want to call them, have plagued this Raiders team all season long. Those mind-numbingly dumb mistakes are a big reason the Raiders sit at 1-4 on the year.
Las Vegas Raiders
Whether it’s an ill-timed penalty that stalls a drive, a fumble, a poorly timed interception, a missed tackle, a blown assignment – the Raiders shot themselves in the foot a million different ways this season.
Oakland’s dumb mistakes have not only stalled drives, they’ve taken points off the board, and even worse, allowed their opponent to put points on the board. Nobody is immune to this criticism, as everybody in a black jersey seems to do the stupidest thing, at the worst time possible.
Carr currently leads the league in interceptions with eight, which puts him on pace to absolutely shatter his personal-worst interceptions record. He’s on pace to throw almost 26 interceptions this year when he’s never thrown more than 13 in any one season.
Worse than that, are his red zone interceptions. Overall, he’s thrown five inside the 20 – and three in the endzone.
Carr has been bad this season. Really bad. And you can hang perhaps two or three of those four losses directly on his shoulders for his poor decision making, and even poorer passing.
But, he’s not alone. The receivers are still dropping balls, the defense is making more mistakes than you can even keep up with most days, as a whole, the team is taking stupid penalties at even worse times, and their red zone offense is an absolute dumpster fire.
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And oh yeah, let’s not forget the role Gruden and the coaches are playing in this. The Raiders have come out looking sharp in most games this season, but then the game plan wanders, meanders, and ultimately fizzles out, and the team winds up looking as lost as they have been since Gruden’s last tenure.
This team needs to clean up their decision making, implement a coherent game plan, and stop making stupid mistakes. If they can’t do that, this team could well be angling for the number one overall pick in next year’s NFL Draft.
Hell, they may be angling for it already anyway.