The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of my Raider weekend in Buffalo....
Well, what can I say... the Raiders just cannot win in Buffalo!
The best part of the entire weekend of course was to see family(they live 45 minutes away in Rochester). Great to see mom, sisters and a new nephew. It been a tough week with my father-in-law passing away earlier in the week and seeing family was a nice way to help the pain go away.
Well, here goes it...
The Good:
With injuries to the ENTIRE starting recieving corp(Ford, Murphy, Bey AND Boss), the backups filled in better than I can truly imagined. Like I said before remember the name
Denarious Moore...he will be a STAR! 5 catches, 148 yards, 1 TD AND an effort so big on the final play, a "hailmary" that they took 10 minutes to review if he had dual posession long enough to call it a TD. The announcement from the refs came to a 3/4 empty stadium.
Derek Hagen had a nice game where he made every crucial catches when the team needed them most.
Darren McFadden had a great all around game. 75 yards rushing, 71 yards recieving for 146 all purpose yards on 27 touches. Jason Campbell had a very good game, 23-33, 328 yards, 2 TDs/1 INT(on the "hail mary" pass). Made some very good decisions and you cannot ask for anything else, you HAVE to win when you score 35 points.
The Bad:
Fitzpatrick picked up apart with the short game. The CBs were played too scared of the long threat and the just gave WAY too much cushion when covering man-to-man. Something they will eventually fix. Our LB did a good job pass covering, but real bad in having the front lines back when it came to run support. Alot of that had to do with the lack of depth the Raiders have had all season in the LB department. Those starters were gassed. NONE THE LESS, start using those young guys....and the lack of using them or lack of trust is the coaches fault. IF you don't trust your players, WHY are they on your team.
EDIT:
Oh yeah, I forgot about our midget kick returner Nick Miller...MY GOODNESS, with ALL the speed we have, we pick the SLOWEST GUY ON THE TEAM to return kicks??!!! Not only that, the moment he would get touched...he would just fall..not dive, not lunge, not jump...but just fall to the floor where his body language would simple say, "please to don't hit me anymore...." AAARRRGGGGG!!!!
The DOWNRIGHT Ugly:
The so-called "Monsters" in the front line were nothing but. The were pushed, smacked, pulled, yanked and eat up alive by the Bills offensive line. NO TEAM should lose after the offense put up 35 points. And finally, oh those pesky penalties...
The 1st half, they played a FLAWLESS 2 quarters...outplaying the Bills with ZERO penalties. The CBs played too damn scared. The Raiders have some of the fastest CB in the game...they practice against 2 of the fastest players in the game in DBH and Jacoby Ford...then WHY are you giving 10 yard cushions on man-to-man coverage... GROW a F***ING PAIR!!! :rant: Then, ugliness reared it's ugly head. 8 penalties for 85 yards, and some of them were questionable, but still... you HAVE to be better than that.
Next week, home opener against the JETS. UGH....I still have very high hopes for this team...they have showed some fight and they really need it because the AFC West, more than ever, is WIDE OPEN.