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Official 2019 Oakland (?) Raiders Thread (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Hankmoody
- Start date
What's so impressive about this win? The starting WRs against the vaunted Chicago defense were Trevor Davis, Keelan Doss and Hunter Renfrow. Then add in a much-maligned, often injured QB, a reclamation project and another rookie at the TE positions and rookie RB carrying the load. Talk about a rag-tag group on offense.
This statement win showed the league that this is not a 4-12 team anymore. 7-9 or 8-8 yes, but that says something. We are seeing growth right before our eyes. As much as the Gruden detractors hate it, this win was all Gruden. From flying the team in a week early (it made all the difference) to the game plan to cover up the weaknesses at WR and to keep Mack locked down. Gruden will forever get bashed and criticized for the Mack trade, but for one night, he was right. Kudos Chucky, now go take a nap.
This statement win showed the league that this is not a 4-12 team anymore. 7-9 or 8-8 yes, but that says something. We are seeing growth right before our eyes. As much as the Gruden detractors hate it, this win was all Gruden. From flying the team in a week early (it made all the difference) to the game plan to cover up the weaknesses at WR and to keep Mack locked down. Gruden will forever get bashed and criticized for the Mack trade, but for one night, he was right. Kudos Chucky, now go take a nap.
Chaka
Footballguy
LawFitz
Footballguy
Probably one of the most satisfying wins in the past ten years. IMO shows how football is a team sport. Requires a relatively talented group of eleven on each side of the ball to win games in the NFL. Unlike basketball, where one or two studs can be surrounded by role players and win championships. Don't want to start the whole Mack trade discussion again, I was done with that a year ago. But seems to justify the trade in one aspect. Keeping Mack, they may not have been able to overhaul the team over the past year as they have (and yes, still much more to do). Need to build a complete team, not a few multi-million dollar studs surrounded by medicore role players. Yes it was fun watching Mack. Personally for me, I prefer to watch them win another super bowl then one man's hall of fame career. Not too sure if that would have happened with the salary cap hit signing Mack would have done. Perhaps the Bears and Cowboys can, but we'll see. A few more years they will have to start dealing with a cap crunch.
Chadstroma
Footballguy
Jay Gruden fired. Chances of him being on staff next year is high IMO. OC? Would kind of suck for Olsen. Maybe some Assistant HC, Passing game coordinator or some such?
Chaka
Footballguy
Gotcha. I thought that may have been where you were going.
They did make Brown the highest paid Tackle in the game though.
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Chadstroma
Footballguy
Keep in mind guys, we have the 9th youngest team in the league. A lot of raw talent that is developing (Hurst showed growth with 2 sacks and a pressure that in reality caused an INT and did everything textbook but still got the penalty).
Offensively we need a top end WR amd that is about it. I would like a bruiser back too but that is a want and not a need.
Defensively we need all our young guys to grow and depth at corner and LB. There are not a lot of glaring needs here.
The team has gelled and very close. Any of you catch Carr press? He spoke on that at length.
Offensively we need a top end WR amd that is about it. I would like a bruiser back too but that is a want and not a need.
Defensively we need all our young guys to grow and depth at corner and LB. There are not a lot of glaring needs here.
The team has gelled and very close. Any of you catch Carr press? He spoke on that at length.
Chadstroma
Footballguy
A bit crazy but he is damn solid on that right side. Miller has shown he was worth the pick and legit on the left. I love his athleticism to make some plays most LT's in this league couldn't do in the running game.
Chaka
Footballguy
Agreed. But, he would be the highest paid LT and we keep him on the right. Nothing wrong with that but it really wasn't cost saving relative to paying Mack.
I haven't watched a lot of film but I think Gruden & Co deserve some credit for the Miller pick. He looks like he is developing into the real deal.
Stompin' Tom Connors
Footballguy
Reggie was really good as a turnaround specialist in terms of internal operations -- firing bad staff, restructuring contracts. Believe in his first year, he inherited a situation where we had $154M committed against a $121M cap.
He was really variable (and mostly poor) in terms of draft hits, which was surprising given all his years being a scout with the Packers.
I give Reggie some props -- pretty instrumental in putting us on the path to turning around.
Chadstroma
Footballguy
Reggie did a great job with what he inherited. We were in cap hell with no talent. Reggie is a master at constructing team friendly contracts and managing the cap with long term team health in mind.
Remember, he did the same cut off the arm to save the patient approach you see in Miami right now though they have been going heavy on the trades and generating draft capital more so than he ever did with us. But I think that is the proven long term way to build a winning franchise. How many times have we seen teams who were crowned off-season champions fizzle and die?
Reggie had more than a few whiffs but he hit big time with Mack. Got a hell of a QB in the 2nd. Though Amari always seemed to never hit his stride with us has shoem he is a legit #1 with the Cowboys and got a top tier G. He brought over some guys in FA that were questioned often and some panned out and some didn't.
Reggie is a well above average front office guy, a good person and always will be a Raider. I will be very interested to see what the Dolphins do this off season. Should be interesting with the 1st overall and a couple of 1sts.
DocHolliday
Footballguy
Hope Gruden learned his lesson with trying to shortcut his way to building a team by gambling on crazy old players. It's time to release Incognito or let him know that one more unnecessary roughness penalty and he is gone.
Chaka
Footballguy
Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but it's fun, so okay.
The Pats are the Pats but is it just me or could they be a mirage and no one knows it yet? Look at their schedule so far. Four of their opponents are a combined 1-13 (not including playing the Pats). The one team they played with a winning record gave them a hell of a good game.
Up next for them are the 2-3 Giants (at home) and the the 0-4 Jets before they face the next team on their schedule that may have a winning record in Cle 2-2 (another home game).
Has any SB champ ever been gifted such a cake walk schedule?
DocHolliday
Footballguy
We have discussed the Pats schedule in the past. That division has helped NE with home field playoff games for years.
Stompin' Tom Connors
Footballguy
LawFitz
Footballguy
I'm not referring to cost savings or relative values. Very simply, overpaid or not, Mack's money was used on Brown (and Joyner). And the first of the two picks received for him was Jacobs. Right now that trade is essentially Mack for Brown, Joyner, Jacobs, TBD 2020 1st rd rookie. Joyner has been a bit up and down, but aside from both guys getting nicked repeatedly now, Brown and Jacobs have been absolute studs. And yesterday, the switch out from Mack to Brown/Jacobs was the margin of difference in winning vs. losing that game. It was just one game, of course - but yet a highly symbolic and potentially pivotal game for this young team's psyche and their view of their controversial head coach, just as they head into their bye.Chaka said:
And expanding the view outward, the trade was more than Brown/Joyner/Jacobs/TBD 1st rdr. It was actually Brown 2019-2020, Joyner 2019, Jacobs 2019-2023, TBD 1st rdr 2020-2024 for Mack 2018-2023. VERY important to note the cap flexibility in the ~$25MM/yr cap commitment to Brown and Joyner vs. Mack. With Mack, if he gets injured (or became a malcontent on the Raiders, which it now appears he may have been quietly trending towards), they were stuck with his albatross contract. If either of Brown or Joyner bum out, Gruyock can cut bait quickly and find the next guy to allocate those huge dollars towards.
It's absolutely myopic and improper to look at the Mack deal as just two first rounders in return. It was 2 first rounders PLUS ~$25 MM in annual cap that is FLEXIBLE going forward. And of course, some movement of later round picks, but those are a lot less material than the above.
---
And once again, ALL of the above stated. I still don't think I would've traded Mack. Bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. And a hand in the bush is even better. Giggity.
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ICON211
Footballguy
I think Reggie gets way too much credit for the job he did with the Raiders. If you are given time the easy part is tearing it down. The hard part is building a winner and after SIX years of his leadership the team was still largely devoid of talent, had 0 playoff wins and was in need of another rebuild.
I give Reggie a lot of credit for doing his best to "right the ship". He wrote the blueprint on our current free agency contracts and ensured we had/have lots of cap flexibility moving forward but you've got to admit it's pretty ugly what's going on in Miami. Can't imagine too many front office guys would want their names attached to that but lets see in 3 years. Maybe it will be Raiders/Dolphins in the AFC championship.Stompin' Tom Connors said:
joey
Footballguy
too be fair, his contract is probably really favorable if looked at from the pov of "dollars per vertical inch of height"Chaka said:
(read: the dude is a GIANT out there, amongst other giants on the OL. Don't know the last time I've seen an o-lineman tower over other o-lineman like he does.)
Stompin' Tom Connors
Footballguy
6'8. 360.
This vs 50% percentile for linemen of 6'5, 314.
Makes seeing this literal mountain of a man with a baby face trying to surreptitiously chow down on fruit roll-ups at training camp that much more endearing.
So happy to see his performance stay at the level it was for the Pats. The guy is a huge difference-maker out there.
LawFitz
Footballguy
This right here. LT, RT, I don't care at this point. Dude is earning every penny of his deal. He's playing hurt and still making the OL beast.
Huge props also to Kolton Miller's 2nd year improvement. Add Incognito's physicality (when he isn't drawing flags), plus rock steady Hudson and soon-to-be healthy Gabe and suddenly this unit has the makings of an elite grouping for this year and beyond. I mean, even without Jackson they absolute man-handled the Bears DL, which is without a doubt a top-3 unit. That said, Hicks got hurt early, and the Bears were probably jet-lagged and looking past the Raiders, if we're honest about all of it. Let's see these guys do this consistently to more teams. They are improving. It's possible.
Hankmoody
Footballguy
And all of this with crap talent at quite a few positions still. Imagine if we had real WR's or an effective pass rush. Not intending to bash Gruden's personnel decisions, although they remain on full display (and hopefully Mayock can curb those going forward), but it's stil a testament to what the rest of the team has done.
Hankmoody
Footballguy
Heavily overrated. Everything he did was no-brainer stuff. Cut huge contracts and ate the dead money early and then sat around waiting for it to clear off. All he really did was some front-loaded contracts with less guaranteed later to leverage all the cap space we had from cutting all the no-brainer dead money he inherited. His drafting was terrible, and before you claim Mack and Carr, those decisions were the easiest decisions ever. I suppose we could give him credit for not screwing it up like our former guy would have, but my standards are a bit higher than "don't be horrible" even if I have no reason to trust they should be. Likeable guy, no ill will towards him, but I'm glad he's in Miami and not Oakland.Stompin' Tom Connors said:
I haven't seen much actual game play living here in Ohio, has Miller really looked good? He wasn't last year, and that's a huge gain if he has.
Stompin' Tom Connors
Footballguy
Not sure I get it.
I think Zay has talent, but he's a little unproven, not exactly the WR1 we need, and I don't see what separates him from the rest of some of the talented up-and-comers on our squad already.
Welcome the help given how decimated our corps is -- gives us another pure receiver instead of a ST/WR hybrid.
Hankmoody
Footballguy
It's a low cost move in a position of drastic need. No, he's not a WR1, but those don't come with a 5th round price tag. I'd be happier with AJ Green obviously. But Zones is a warm body where we have none while Tyrell is out, and only have one once he's back. If he turns out to be Sanu that's a huge improvement over what we have.
DocHolliday
Footballguy
This is the kind of move I really like. The Raider WR Corp has been thin all season and thinner since Williams went down. Jones is young and worth the roll of the dice with a 5th round pick.
Zay is like Ryan Grant 2.0. A good team guy, would do anything asked of him in Buffalo with a great attitude, takes run blocking seriously, plays special teams just isn't really an exceptional WR it seems but a good guy to have on the team. We should have signed Duke Williams from their practice squad after the AB fiasco but Zay is a nice addition.
LawFitz
Footballguy
How is it a nice addition if he is Ryan Grant 2.0? They just paid a draft pick to get him after recently cutting Ryan Grant 1.0.
Plus, isn't this the guy that got arrested for getting into a fight with his brother while naked a couple years ago?
So we have Ryan Grant talent with an Incognito head? Is that what I am reading here?
Ya, he's not some game changing talent but he has a sliver of additional upside to Ryan Grant as at least he's had a few big games and flashed. We had 2 inactive WR's due to injury, maybe it's worse than we know on one of them? Could end up being a decent WR3 for us with another year left on his rookie deal. Lets see how it plays out.
Chaka
Footballguy
Ryan Grant? I don't know what Zay Jones is but he has pretty much matched, or surpassed, Ryan Grant's career totals in every statistical category is 45% of games played.
And Grant got 3+ seasons with competent NFL QB play. Jones had one season with Tyrod Taylor and one with Josh Allen as a rookie.
Seriously, what has Ryan Grant ever done to convince anyone that his maximum upside is anything other than JAG?
And Grant got 3+ seasons with competent NFL QB play. Jones had one season with Tyrod Taylor and one with Josh Allen as a rookie.
Seriously, what has Ryan Grant ever done to convince anyone that his maximum upside is anything other than JAG?
Ok maybe a bad comparison but what I was getting at is he's a high character guy (I'm not going to hold one night of mind altering drugs against the kid) that has not reached his potential but a good worker and from what I've read his personality and work ethic have not been problems. Just doesn't seem to have "it" but maybe he's a late bloomer or needs a different system. I doubt it's a season changing move but I don't hate it.
Chaka
Footballguy
Ryan Grant, may be a high character dude and he may be a hard worker. He is also a sixth year player who, despite his hard work couldn't translate that into production. He's not a "late bloomer" he's JAG. Still a better athlete than anyone I have ever met but also JAG in the NFL.
Zay...well we no idea but his 2018 production, his 2nd season, he outproduced any single Ryan Grant season. That one season was something like 50%+ of Grant's career production across the board.
Not trying to hate in Grant, or overly prop up Zay. I'm simply not understanding why anyone thinks Grant is anything other than what he has proven to be on the field.
Chaka
Footballguy
Sorry, my bad.
I thought the knock on Zay was that he may not be a high character guy and may not work hard enough. What other reason would the Bills be bailing on the current staff's very high 2nd round pick from 2017?
A fifth in 2021 seems pretty bargain basement for a hard working, high character 3rd year player with decent production under less than ideal circumstances and significant draft capital already invested.
DocHolliday
Footballguy
Chadstroma
Footballguy
What #1 WR are we going to get right now? Sure Diggs wants a trade but the Vikings aren't game. A fifth for Zay Jones who has more potential than what he has done so far. I am good with that.
Chadstroma
Footballguy
Zay Jones has oodles of talent. Very sure hands. Not a Al kind of guy with average speed but produced tons in college. More of a Cooper Kupp type of guy IMO. Mayock loved him going into the draft.
Chadstroma
Footballguy
I read he got put in the dog house because he didn't put enough effort into breaking up an INT and seems to be odd man out in Buffalo.
Two things I know about Zay (which isn't saying much).
He was found and arrested running naked and bloody in the streets of LA after an altercation. I don't know any details of what happened. But after surviving my 20's I'm willing to give him a mulligan if it was one bad night or trip.
The only Bills WR I've even seen catch a pass the past couple years is Zay Jones. For a 5th rounder in 2021, doesn't seem like a steep price tag for a sure handed 3rd down WR.
He was found and arrested running naked and bloody in the streets of LA after an altercation. I don't know any details of what happened. But after surviving my 20's I'm willing to give him a mulligan if it was one bad night or trip.
The only Bills WR I've even seen catch a pass the past couple years is Zay Jones. For a 5th rounder in 2021, doesn't seem like a steep price tag for a sure handed 3rd down WR.
Only big bodied WR on the roster. Kind of a Preston Williams but older but has a track record in the CFL of legit turning his life around and committing to football. Knows this is his last chance to get in the league and had been doing all the right things in practice all summer like taking pride in his run blocking. Led the CFL in receiving last year but is staying humble and doing anything to get in the league. Could be a nothing burger but I like the story, the interviews with him and his teammate's feedback. Should be the main red zone target in Buffalo whatever that is worth but seems like a great flyer to me. Not a burner but just a big, strong guy.
Edit: Not to derail the thread but just want to share with the brethren before waivers. Back to Raider talk!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buhN4g4EE4o
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kaso
Footballguy
And a draft selection from the previous GM before Beane stepped in days after that very draft... and then left in an offence that didn't suit his abilities. For the cost of a 5th round pick 2 drafts from now, I will call the trade a win he he helps extend a drive every 2nd or 3rd week.
A week off for the players and the addition of (hopefully) Gabe, Lawson, and now Zay Jones as they head into week 7... exciting times!
Chadstroma
Footballguy
Ateman waived. Likely get back on practice squad but that sucks for him.
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