NFL's East Coast/Cowboys Bias may be crushed Sunday night, which would be sweet justice for NFL fans! If Redskins beat Cowboys, strong chance no team from 5 of U.S.'s Top 6 TV markets will make NFL playoffs: No NY, no LA (not even Chargers!), no Chicago, no Philly, no Dallas. Plus, we'll finally be free of analysis of Romo & Roethlisberger's angst! Hooray!!!
It's all up to the Redskins to make
Showing posts with label Oakland Raiders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oakland Raiders. Show all posts
NFL's East Coast/Cowboys Bias may be crushed Sunday night, which would be sweet justice for NFL fans! If Redskins beat Cowboys, strong chance no team from 5 of U.S.'s Top 6 TV markets will make NFL playoffs: No NY, no LA (not even Chargers!), no Chicago, no Philly, no Dallas. Plus, we'll finally be free of analysis of Romo & Roethlisberger's angst! Hooray!!!
Read User's comments(0)
Some Thoughts on the Seahawks Win Over Oakland
In the Seahawks preseason finale, a 20-3 win over the Raiders, they finally gave us fans something to be happy about. Not only did they not allow a touchdown the whole game, but they actually looked good out there. While the team may not have looked like one of the elites like Green Bay or New England, they looked much better than in previous weeks. At least to me, there looked to be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Since I’m sure you guys have either seen the game or read numerous full recaps of the game, I won’t bore you guys with a recap on here. Instead, I’ll just give my thoughts and evaluations of what went down Friday night.
Let’s start with (what else?) the QB. Tarvaris Jackson was in the game for all but the final 39 seconds of the first quarter, and I have to say that he looked pretty good. Well, he looked better than in previous weeks. Offensive line issues aside, Jackson would often hold onto the ball way too long while in the pocket when he was given time by the line. That was not the case on Friday. He actually was getting rid of the ball in a timely manner and making some good throws. On his first drive, he marched the team right down the field to the red zone and was looking like they would get a TD early. That was until he reverted to his old self and made a HORRIBLE decision to try and thread the ball between two defenders to hit Golden Tate in the endzone. This pass was easily picked off and ran back about 20 or so yards. Tarvaris, you were doing so well. He did better on the next drive, and even completed a deep pass to Tate for 43 yards. This drive ended with a FG. All in all, I have to say that it was nice to see him actually have a decent game for the time he was in. I’m pretty interested to see what he’s going to do against the 49ers.
Charlie Whitehurst played as well. I would say that this was his worst game of the four that he’s played in. Not that he played a bad game, but just that he didn’t do anything to really wow me. He moved the ball pretty good down the field and made some nice reads, but also made some poor reads that showed why he’s still the backup QB for this team. In my mind, Jackson is the lesser of two evils and should be the starting QB for the team at this point in time.
The offensive line looked better as well. They were actually giving the QBs time to make good decisions. There was no more rushers flying right off the defensive line to sack the QB. In fact, there were no sacks allowed by the line. Well unless you count the one where Whitehurst pretty much ran into a lineman and kind of sacked himself that is. So overall they looked much better than in previous weeks.
It wasn’t without a cost though. LG Robert Gallery suffered a knee injury early on in the game. It wasn’t just a minor one either. While there hasn’t been an official word on how long he’ll be out for, Pete Carroll said after the game that the injury was significant enough that his status for the season opener is in question. Let’s hope that it’s nothing major. We hopefully will have Russell Okung by the opener, so it’d be a bummer to get him back and then lose Gallery.
Keeping with injuries for a quick second here, the defensive line also suffered a substantial injury. DE Jimmy Wilkerson also injured his knee during the game, and this one was definitely a major one. He was placed on IR yesterday, which means his season is over. I really hated for that to happen since I liked what I had seen so far from him and was looking forward to seeing what else he had.
Speaking of defense, they looked pretty darn good out there Friday night. As I said at the beginning, they did not allow a touchdown the whole game, which was nice to see. Now, as a disclaimer, I do want to remind you all that this was the Raiders after all. The Raiders suck. So holding them down to a field goal was nice, but take it with a grain of salt. That being said, however, they still looked good. I do want to point out that there were a handful of pass interference penalties throughout the course of the game that could be a cause for concern, but let’s hope that doesn’t become a trend.
Just some quick notes about guys that stood out to me. First and foremost, Golden Tate. He had a great game on Friday. He ended with 79 yards receiving on five catches. It was definitely nice to see him finally get things going and show why he deserves a spot on the team. Another guy was Kris Durham. He had only one catch for 9 yards, but the catch was a nice one. It was thrown a little high, but he used his 6'6" frame to reach up and bring the ball down. This is a guy to keep an eye on throughout the season.
Just some quick notes about guys that stood out to me. First and foremost, Golden Tate. He had a great game on Friday. He ended with 79 yards receiving on five catches. It was definitely nice to see him finally get things going and show why he deserves a spot on the team. Another guy was Kris Durham. He had only one catch for 9 yards, but the catch was a nice one. It was thrown a little high, but he used his 6'6" frame to reach up and bring the ball down. This is a guy to keep an eye on throughout the season.
Overall, I think that this game was a perfect one to end the preseason with. The past two games haven’t exactly been confidence inspiring games. In fact, they probably had taken away a lot of the confidence these guys had. So it was nice to see them get a win. Hopefully this shows the team that they do have a chance to do great things this year.
No time to revel in the win though since the season opener is now just a short 6 days away. I cannot wait.
No time to revel in the win though since the season opener is now just a short 6 days away. I cannot wait.
Seahawks to face Raiders with questions still looming large
Graphic courtesy of Ryan Gray (@RGray525)
By Wyatt Lyles
The Seahawks will be taking on the Raiders in their final game of the preseason. There will be a lot of things to look out for in this game, so let’s get right into it.
The Seahawks will be taking on the Raiders in their final game of the preseason. There will be a lot of things to look out for in this game, so let’s get right into it.
While the QB controversy had been the biggest question going into games, a new, and perhaps more pressing, issue has come up. That issue is the one of the offensive line. I feel like I’ve been repeating the same things over and over the last couple weeks, but this is a big issue that needs to be worked on. I hope that at least some of the problems will be alleviated once Russell Okung is back into the line up, which looks like may be happening pretty soon here. But until then, there is some major work to be done.
Perhaps the person who’s got the most work to do is rookie right tackle James Carpenter. While he is a rookie and this has been an extremely short off season, there is a big concern with him. I could see if maybe he missed a few blocks here and there, but he got completely destroyed in last Saturday’s game against Denver. Guys were literally just blowing right past him, and knocking him around like he was some skinny kid on the playground. This is something that just can’t happen, an Pete Carroll has recognized this. This week at practice, as reported by Clare Farnsworth of the Seahawks Blog, Carpenter has been splitting reps with Breno Giacomini on the offensive line. This was a smart move as Carpenter just may not be cut out to be a starter just yet. I would say to start him tonight and see how he does. If he shows some improvement, let him start in the season opener against the 49ers. But, if he looks the same as he has been, then it may be time to bench him for now until he’s ready to be a starter. Look to see how the line does tonight. Will our QBs actually have time to throw the ball? We’ll find out soon.
Looking at the QBs briefly, Carroll has said that Tarvaris Jackson will be starting the game, but did not say how long he or any other starter will be playing. It had been speculated that the starters may play longer than usual to get them more reps in preparation of the season opener. Both Charlie Whitehurst and Josh Portis will make an appearance tonight as well, we just don’t know how long.
I won’t go into another discussion of the “QB Controversy” since that’s been hashed, and re-hashed enough already. I will say one thing, though. Some people have been saying all preseason that Whitehurst should be the starter for this team based on his performance in the first two games. When those people were reminded that he had only played against backups, they said that it didn’t matter and that Jackson perhaps wouldn’t be able to do the same against the backups. Well, last weekend, Jackson led a TD drive against the backups, and looked just as good as Whitehurst had against the backups. So some of those naysayers should have been silenced a bit after that.
Also look for what some of the young guys will be doing in this game. There’s a lot of guys, especially at the receiver position (Chris Carter, Patrick Williams, Doug Baldwin, Ricardo Lockette) and in the secondary (FS Mark LeGree, CB Byron Maxwell, SS Josh Pinkard, DB Jeron Johnson, CB Richard Sherman), that will be fighting for a spot on the 53-man roster that needs to be decided on by Saturday. So this is their last chance to make themselves stand out to the coaches. Hopefully they get a chance to play and showcase their abilities in this final game.
Let’s look at some of the injuries this week before we get out of here. Running back Marshawn Lynch (ankle) and linebacker David Hawthorne (knee) did not practice yesterday and have been pretty much ruled out for tonight’s game. The following didn’t practice yesterday, but haven’t been officially ruled out for the game: wide receivers Mike Williams (toe), Sidney Rice (shoulder), Ben Obomanu (head), and Isaiah Stanback (hamstring); defensive lineman Pierre Allen (hamstring), and strong safety Kam Chancellor (foot). We should know more about their official status for the game later on today.
Mainly for tonight, just look for the first team offense to get one last chance to find some cohesion and actually start to gel. This is the last chance they’ll have before the opener to get something going. Let’s hope we see something good out of them today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
