Oakland Raiders: The good, bad, and ugly in week eight loss to Colts
By Kevin Saito
Bad: Lack Of Pressure
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know. We get it already. “If Khalil Mack were here…”
Well, he’s not, so it’s time to turn the page on Mack, as difficult as that is to swallow, even still. But, grousing about who’s here and who’s not is counterproductive. The fact of the matter is that even if Mack were still in a Raiders uniform, they still wouldn’t be recording a whole lot of pressures – as evidenced by the years he was in a Raiders uniform, and the defense was still in the bottom echelon of quarterback pressures.
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The Raiders aren’t getting pressure from anywhere, or from anybody. Not Bruce Irvin (who seems to have totally checked out), not Arden Key, not Frostee Rucker, not Maurice Hurst, not – you get the point.
The defense needs to generate pressure from multiple people. Even if Mack were still a Raiders, there’s only so much one man can do. At some point, he’s going to need help.
Oakland managed to hit Colts quarterback Andrew Luck just one time. Once. They recorded no sacks, and managed to hit him just the one, single, solitary time. And let’s not pretend the Colts have a Hall of Fame offensive line. The Raiders just couldn’t win the battles up front.
But, that too is a constant theme to this season. On the year, the Raiders have generated just 56 total quarterback pressures. That’s eight pressures a game – which might seem okay, but when you consider the Detroit Lions have the second fewest pressures in the league with 100, it looks even worse.
The lack of pressure up front is allowing opposing quarterbacks to pick apart the secondary, making them look even worse than they do on their own. It’s something Gruden and DC Paul Guenther are going to have to figure out and fix PDQ.