Kansas City Chiefs: Getting to know Oakland Raiders before Week 2

With one week down in the NFL season, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders are both 1-0. As the two teams prepare to clash Sunday afternoon in Alameda County, California, let’s get to know the Raiders a little bit better.

Like last week with the Jaguars, I have reached out to the site expert of FanSided’s site devoted solely to the Oakland Raiders, wonderfully entitled Just Blog Baby. Graciously, Brad Weiss has taken the time to answer several of my questions about this Raiders squad that looked well-oiled against the Denver Broncos.

Let’s start with some questions about that Week One performance.

Oakland’s Week One Victory

In the nightcap of ESPN’s Monday Night Football, the Raiders started strong before a home crowd, jumping out to an early 7-0 lead on a touchdown pass from quarterback Derek Carr to wide receiver Tyrell Williams.

Oakland never looked back with Denver never getting that close again as the home team came away with the 24-16 victory. The most surprising thing about the victory, Weiss said, was “how good the offensive line played against the combination of Bradley Chubb and Von Miller. Last season, Derek Carr was sacked over 50 times, which seriously affected how good he could be in his first year in Jon Gruden’s offense. With protection, Carr picked apart Denver in Week 1, and was not hit once.”

I then asked Weiss to share his thoughts on Oakland’s biggest positive and most glaring weakness. For the positive, he pointed to the play of both of the lines, stating about the defensive line that “[a]fter getting only 13 sacks as a team last season, the Raiders kicked things off with three in the opener, including two from Benson Mayowa. Bringing in Brentson Buckner as the new defensive line coach this season is already paying dividends, and they should only get better based on how young the unit is.”

As far as a weakness, he said that “[t]he Raiders are still having issues covering the middle of the field, and that is going to hurt against a tight end like Travis Kelce. If the Raiders want to do anything against the Chiefs they are going to have to stop him, especially with Tyreek Hill down for a couple of weeks. You know Patrick Mahomes is going to exploit any weakness in the defense, and for Oakland, this is a big one.”

Carr finished the game completing 22 of 26 passing attempts for 259 yards and one touchdown with zero interceptions. Tight end Darren Waller led the team with seven receptions while Williams paced the squad with 105 yards receiving. Outside of Williams, no Oakland receiver had more than 16 yards receiving, which may not be that problematic.

“It is not concerning if you really look at how the offense was run on Monday night,” Weiss said. “The offense was focused on taking shots downfield with Williams, but also utilizing…Waller [who caught] all of his targets, and he and Williams are going to be the focal point of the passing game. Hunter Renfrow had a big catch down by the goalline, and Josh Jacobs made a few grabs out of the backfield. Carr likes to use the tight end, but I was more impressed that he actually had time to go downfield a few times against a tough Denver pass rush.”