It's been a while since we dedicated a post solely to the Raiders, and with the 49ers playing in Monday Night's game, it gives us a chance to look at their contest with Detroit a lot closer. I thought it was a very well played game on both ends, especially offensively. Both teams didn't seem to have trouble throwing the football, as Carson Palmer went 32-40 for 370 yards while Matthew Stafford bested him with 391
yards and 4 scores. The most impessive TD's, easily in my mind, came from MegaTron himself, Calvin Johnson who had one of his best games of his career. He hauled in both a 51-yard and 16-yard strikes from Stafford and finished the day with 9 grabs and 214 yards. He really was the difference maker out there Sunday as the Raiders were again without Darren McFadden. Michael Bush struggled to get it going on the ground, which stumped the Raiders offense a lot on 3rd-and-short. Early on in the game, I thought Oakland had the hold on them though. Speaking of career type games, Darrious Heyward-Bey easily had his, reeling in 8 passes for 155 yards and a TD. It makes me wonder what happened to him in the offense after the Palmer trade when he became non-existent until a week ago. I know there was some injury issues there, but this guy is rounding into the Raiders top pass-catcher.It really just came down to two good football teams battling it out and the better team won. The Lions, even with the question mark at running back, clearly are the superior team to Oakland, especially without Run DMC. It also took a last second block of a "Seebass" 65-yard attempt that may have very well been the game winner. You hate a loss, and this one hurts, but the Raiders, especially their offensive passing unit and O-Line should take plenty of positives out of this game. What they do need to figure out, is how to contain teams' big-play recievers without negating the rest of the offense, which is why Hue Jackson makes millions of dollars of dollars per year!
No comments:
Post a Comment