Oakland Raiders: Rookie stock report following Week 2 loss
By Nico Di Fede
Stock Up: Josh Jacobs, Maxx Crosby, A.J. Cole
Josh Jacobs had his second impressive performance in a row, tallying 99 yards on 12 carries with an 8.3 average. The rookie running back seems to be the back they hoped he would be when they drafted him and more.
And with more performances like these, he is definitively a Rookie of the Year contender.
The game maybe could have gone differently had Jon Gruden and the offense actually leaned on Jacobs more in the first half as the Chiefs defense had nothing for him, but apparently Jacobs got dinged up early in the game with a hip injury.
Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be anything serious as he did continue to play through it, though only on 30 plays throughout the game, which was 46% of the offensive snaps.
His best play of the day came on a 51-yard run in the third quarter which at the time seemed like it could have been a momentum shifter. Sadly that wasn’t the case due to an ill-timed interception thrown by Derek Carr shortly thereafter.
Maxx Crosby had a better performance here than he did last week, finishing with three solo tackles and three assists, with a couple of those being run stops for no gain. The best parts of his game were his few pressures on Patrick Mahomes, forcing him to throw incompletions.
On one play, Crosby got past the Chiefs backup left tackle simply by throwing him to the ground with one arm and forced Mahomes to get rid of it early.
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That was good to see as Crosby’s main goal this offseason was to get stronger as he mostly got by on his athleticism being a speed rusher. Well, it seems he did and he still has plenty of frame to fill out.
One of his QB hits was called for a roughing the passer, but it was universally considered a bad call, as he was mid-air making it pretty much impossible for a human his size to somehow not fall on top of Mahomes with all his body weight.
It was still a positive play stock-wise for him in my mind though as he got past his man and forced another incompletion.
A.J. Cole came through with yet another nice performance, and this is following news that he was questionable to play this week due to a right foot injury.
Cole had six punts totaling 264 yards with a 44.0 average. Two of those punts were downed within the 20-yard line, both downed on the five-yard line to be exact. His longest punt of the day was a 60-yarder.