Team Spotlight: Oakland Raiders (1 Viewer)

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I'll start off by posting my projections to get us going. The idea is for others to post their own projections as well, or to comment on the projections posted by others.

Overall

502 pass attempts for 301 receptions, 3203 yards, 17 touchdowns, and 16 interceptions; 440 rushes for 1845 yards and 10 touchdowns.

QB

Jason Campbell: 249 of 408 passing for 2637 yards, 14 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions; 36 rushes for 172 yards and 1 touchdowns.

Bruce Gradkowski: 52 of 94 passing for 566 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 3 interceptions; 8 rushes for 34 yards and 0 touchdowns.

Kyle Boller: 0 of 0 passing for 0 yards, 0 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions; 0 rushes for 0 yards and 0 touchdowns.

Charlie Frye: 0 of 0 passing for 0 yards, 0 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions; 0 rushes for 0 yards and 0 touchdowns.

RB

Michael Bush: 224 rushes for 949 yards and 6 touchdowns; 23 receptions for 159 yards and 0 touchdowns.

Darren McFadden: 150 rushes for 587 yards and 4 touchdowns; 43 receptions for 354 yards and 1 touchdowns.

Gary Russell: 8 rushes for 29 yards and 0 touchdowns; 13 receptions for 91 yards and 0 touchdowns.

Luke Lawton: 4 rushes for 15 yards and 0 touchdowns; 2 receptions for 16 yards and 0 touchdowns.

WR

Chaz Schilens: 57 receptions for 705 yards and 4 touchdowns; 0 rushes for 0 yards and 0 touchdowns.

Darrius Heyward-Bey: 26 receptions for 322 yards and 2 touchdowns; 2 rushes for 12 yards and 0 touchdowns.

Louis Murphy: 38 receptions for 504 yards and 3 touchdowns; 6 rushes for 35 yards and 0 touchdowns.

Johnnie Lee Higgins: 14 receptions for 177 yards and 1 touchdowns; 2 rushes for 12 yards and 0 touchdowns.

Jacoby Ford: 0 receptions for 0 yards and 0 touchdowns; 0 rushes for 0 yards and 0 touchdowns.

TE

Zach Miller: 70 receptions for 761 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Tony Stewart: 10 receptions for 80 yards and 1 touchdowns.

Brandon Myers: 4 receptions for 35 yards and 0 touchdowns.

You didn't account for Rock Cartwright as RB3. I think he easily gets 300 yrds, and could be a GL guy. I could see 4 TDs. Lawton wont make the team.

I am going out on a limb and say that DHB easily doubles your projection. I can see JLH being cut. I like Ford to make a strong contribution. I'd say its fair to say he will outdo your projection of 0 catches and 0 yards. Ask Spiller what Ford meant to that Clemson team.

I gotta believe Campbell passes for more like 3500 yards and that Schilens catches closer to 70 for 1000 yards.

az_prof said:

I gotta believe Campbell passes for more like 3500 yards and that Schilens catches closer to 70 for 1000 yards.

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I agree that Campbell has many more yards. He had his career best year last year(with that mess in Washington), many people don't realize that.

benson_will_lead_the_way said:

az_prof said:

I gotta believe Campbell passes for more like 3500 yards and that Schilens catches closer to 70 for 1000 yards.

Click to expand...

I agree that Campbell has many more yards. He had his career best year last year(with that mess in Washington), many people don't realize that.

Click to expand...

Campbell had 170 completions to his WR Corps (Moss, Randle El, Thomas & Kelly)another 77 completions to his TE’s (Cooley & Davis)Raider QB’s had 91 completions to thier WR Corps (Schilens, Higgins, Murphy, Heyward-Bey)another 76 completions to thier TE’s (Miller & Stewart)I see some potential for real improvement. I think Ford is a good comparable to a Santana Moss, little speed guy with good hands. Don't sleep on him.

i like the raiders to be one of the most improved teams this season.

but 3500 yards for campbell is too optimistic, while 2600 looks too low. something around 2900-3100 feels about right.

i think the numbers from MT are spot on for Miller and Schilens.

michael bush, as we all know, is the more talented back but i think over 200 carries is what we all WANT to see, but not what will happen. i'd take off 10-15% of your figures and spread them between DMC and other RBs.

benson_will_lead_the_way said:

az_prof said:

I gotta believe Campbell passes for more like 3500 yards and that Schilens catches closer to 70 for 1000 yards.

Click to expand...

I agree that Campbell has many more yards. He had his career best year last year(with that mess in Washington), many people don't realize that.

Click to expand...

The truth is that Campbell has improved every year he's been in the league. He had the 18 red zone TD's with 0 int's last season. His red zone passing was 62.1%. He has a strong arm and arguably more talented skill players than in Washington. I think it's fair to project the level of improvement to have Campbell around 3400 yards.

Raiderfan32904 said:

benson_will_lead_the_way said:

az_prof said:

I gotta believe Campbell passes for more like 3500 yards and that Schilens catches closer to 70 for 1000 yards.

Click to expand...

I agree that Campbell has many more yards. He had his career best year last year(with that mess in Washington), many people don't realize that.

Click to expand...

The truth is that Campbell has improved every year he's been in the league. He had the 18 red zone TD's with 0 int's last season. His red zone passing was 62.1%. He has a strong arm and arguably more talented skill players than in Washington. I think it's fair to project the level of improvement to have Campbell around 3400 yards.

Click to expand...

My thinking on 3,500 yards was that he threw for 3,618 last year in WAS. Are Oaklands receivers that much worse than Washington's were? Personally, I like them better. I see Miller as equivalent to Cooley, and Shilens and Murphy were both pretty good in what was their first years starting, and Shilens was coming off an injury. The RBs are good and the team found some players to improve the OL. I know it is easy to think Oakland--it must be bad. But I see the team making a lot of right moves and I am hard pressed to see how Campbell throws for that many less yards this year.

There were too many times last year that receivers were open, and were just missed.

Personally, I thought the offensive line got a bit scapegoated last year. With no fear of the QB to complete even the most basic pass, I saw a lot of teams loading up on the run, and then turning the dogs loose on 3rd down. Add in a QB that holds the ball too long, and it makes the line look pretty bad. The improvement when Gradkowski was in there, not exactly Dan Marino, is hard to overstate.

I have to think any Zach Miller owners would have to be pretty optimistic. Chaz is enticing, but right now, he's all sleeper hype and injuries. Louis Murphy is exciting to me, but not sure he'll get enough looks to be fantasy relevant.

massraider said:

There were too many times last year that receivers were open, and were just missed.Personally, I thought the offensive line got a bit scapegoated last year. With no fear of the QB to complete even the most basic pass, I saw a lot of teams loading up on the run, and then turning the dogs loose on 3rd down. Add in a QB that holds the ball too long, and it makes the line look pretty bad. The improvement when Gradkowski was in there, not exactly Dan Marino, is hard to overstate. I have to think any Zach Miller owners would have to be pretty optimistic. Chaz is enticing, but right now, he's all sleeper hype and injuries. Louis Murphy is exciting to me, but not sure he'll get enough looks to be fantasy relevant.

Click to expand...

I think the passing stats given in the OP is just too low and the huge reason for that is the fact that there was countless times last season where guys were wide open and we just could not get the ball to them in a spot that anyone without superhuman powers could catch it. Jason Campbell may not be an elite QB but he is a good QB and the problem of throwing the ball 20 feet over a WR head or 5 feet in front of an open RB on a swing should be taken care of. Gradkowski showed that there can be some life to this offense with half way decent QB play. Campbell is better than Gradkowski and we should see even more improvement. I think Zach Miller has the opportunity to be a first tier TE. He has shown all the talent in the world since he has landed in Oakland and the only thing that has really kept him down was poor QB play. Campbell has also shown that he can favor throwing to a TE (Cooley and Davis). I think the whole WR corps has upside here but the problem is that we have no idea who (or any?) of them will step up. Chaz showed some promise before his injury. Murphy was by far the better rookie last season. Heyward-Bey will get all the opportunity in the world and he has the physical ability. I would like them to bring in a proven veteran to lead this group and solidify it. I agree with the direction of what Trembley went with the RB's but I would increase DMC's receptions. The RB's will be more productive because the opposing D's will not be able to key on them as before. It seemed that last year they really wanted to give Bush the carries and then work DMC in on the passing game, however, with the QB play being so bad they just could not get it going. With Campbell, they will be able to play around with DMC more and have it be much more effective.

Another thing about last year's receivers. They are still a bit shellshocked. Zach Miller is a premier TE and was getting laid out over the middle by JR's errant passes. JLH once was our playmaker in 2008, and he got so laid out in week 1 last year, that when he came back he was a shell of himself. I have serious doubts that JLH can shake the fear of going over the middle again. I think he's toast. Collatoral damage of the Jamarcus Russel era.

The WR/TE corps got a reprieve from the madness when Gradkowski came in. You saw the results. This is a very talented group if given the chance. It may take a little while for Campbell and the recieving corp to get the chemistry going, but I don't think it will take too long. The Raiders are still primarily a running team.

But if the passing game is popping; Guess what that does for M. Bush?