Week five of the NFL season is in the books and the Oakland Raiders have fallen to 2-3 after losing to the Baltimore Ravens at home. In a game where Oakland was hoping to right the ship against another struggling team, it turned out to be Oakland who was the struggling team that the Ravens turned things around against.
Far from what I expected and hoped for, the Raiders lost 30-17. As always, we start the week with some quick thoughts and impressions from the loss.
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Derek Carr was out and there’s no question that E.J. Manuel represents a big step backwards in terms of talent. That being said, this loss was in no way the fault of Manuel, who actually played pretty well all things considered. Manuel wasn’t great by any means, but he also wasn’t bad and definitely wasn’t the reason the Raiders lost.
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Baltimore came into Sunday with the league’s worst passing game but you’d never be able to tell the way they threw on the Raiders with ease. Deep passes, in particular, seemed to come with ease for Baltimore.
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A big part of the success in the passing game came against Sean Smith. With Gareon Conley and David Amerson both out, the secondary was even worse than normal.
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Amari Cooper was once again a no show catching only one pass on two targets for a total of eight yards.
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E.J Manuel had his best plays when scrambling from pressure, including a 40 yard touchdown pass to Michael Crabtree.
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The Raiders were finally able to get their run game going again which is some good news. They weren’t great but there were finally some holes to run through and Marshawn Lynch played pretty well when there were running lanes.
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After an absolutely dominant performance against Denver, Khalil Mack wasn’t a no show by any means, but he also didn’t dominate or come close to dominating the way he has in the past.
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The Raiders offensive line finally played better in the run game but the pass protection was once again lacking with three more sacks this week. At times, the Raiders just didn’t have enough blockers as a member of the Ravens would run free to the quarterback.
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Halftime adjustments continue to elude the Raiders offense as they once again came out in the second half and looked completely flat and could not take advantage of starting the second half with the ball.
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The Raiders loss the turnover battle once again, something that has to change if they want to turn things around.
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One of the few bright notes was the return of Michael Crabtree who caught six passes for 82 yards and a touchdown.
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Coaching was again a frustrating part of the game. In particular, the decision not to go for it on 4th and 3 on the Ravens 44 with just over eight minutes left in the 4th quarter when the Raiders were trailing by two scores. Something that’s even more shocking considering the decisions made by Jack Del Rio last week against Denver.
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Things were bad but at least the Raiders didn’t look quite as flat as they have the past two weekends. It seems like they are slowly snapping out of a funk that started against Washington and got a little better against Denver and a little better on Sunday.
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