Perspective is important. When you keep things in perspective, not allowing yourself to get too high or too low, you can remain rational.
I don’t think that I’m out of line in stating that a rational fan could look at the Week 2 matchup with the Buffalo Bills and know that the Raiders were not the better team. The Bills are a perennial contender. They have a stacked roster led by an elite QB. Obviously, anything can happen in the NFL, but again, perspective is important.
The odds were not on Raider Nation’s side. An East Coast game with a 1:00 kick-off should never inspire a ton of confidence. These typically don’t go well. Therefore, I fully expected the Raiders to be overmatched. It was disappointing to see how overmatched they were…but not overly surprising.
What happened?
They lost the battle on the line of scrimmage. Offensively, they could not run block for the second week in a row. Unlike last week though, the pass blocking failed as well. Defensively, they could not generate a consistent pass rush. The tackling that looked so good in Week 1 struggled this week. The secondary could not slow the Bills passing game.
Turnovers were an issue. They had some early momentum in this game, but it was quickly wiped out by a turnover. Hunter Renfrow has been nonexistent so far and Tre Tucker is not being used nearly enough.
The biggest disappointment for me though, was with Jimmy Garoppolo. The ball he threw that nearly got Davante Adams killed is unacceptable. He’s been in this league far too long to make throws like that. Jimmy needs his WR’s to trust him and he won’t gain their trust leading them into harm like that. Thankfully, Davante is ok…and hopefully, Jimmy never puts him in that position again.
Turn the Page
Two weeks into the season and the Raiders are exactly where I thought they’d be. They won a winnable road game in Week 1 and they were overmatched in a 2nd consecutive road game in Week 2.
Now it’s time to turn the page and move onto Week 3. They have a winnable game in their home opener, on national television, against a mediocre Steelers team.