Just Blog Baby » Stevan Ridley

Enough Talk: Time for Hue Jackson to Get Results

Chris Shellcroft — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:06:43 +0000

For the record, I love Hue Jackson’s swagger. I’ll take Hue swagger over Art Shell’s silence any day. Give me Hue’s handling of the press over Bill Callahan’s mishandling of his own locker room. Ask me if I’d rather have Hue’s attitude over Jon Gruden’s cockiness and I’m rolling with Coach Jackson every time.

But the time has come for the talk to stop and the results to follow. Now as far as the offensive line goes, Hue’s bully is being built far ahead of schedule. That has allowed Darren McFadden’s development into becoming a full-fledged fantasy stud to shift into overdrive.

Mission accomplished.

As amazing as the O-line renovation has been the bully building on the defensive side has failed…miserably.
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Raiders Fail to Defend Wes Welker, Patriots Running Game

Chris Shellcroft — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:08:53 +0000

We already knew that slowing the roll of a receiver on a record setting pace was going to be difficult. To date the Oakland secondary hasn’t looked anything like the dominant unit we’ve seen in recent years. So with Tom Brady slated for a Bay Area reunion the early assumption was that the iconic QB was going to have a field day.

Well, things don’t always go as planned.

For whatever it’s worth the Raiders actually limited Brady to his most pedestrian effort of the season. 226 yards is usually the kind of production Brady you’d expect of Brady in the first half. Instead that was the total the Raiders bullied out of Brady for the entire game thanks to constant pressure and close coverage.

Well, close coverage on everyone except Wes Welker.

Eventually somebody out there is going to figure out a way to remove Welker from the Patriot passing attack. Too bad for the Raiders they couldn’t be that team.

Of Brady’s measly 16 completions 9 went to Welker. The diminutive receiver’s 158 yards accounted for 70% of New England’s passing game. No other Patriot – other than Chad Ochiocinco – caught more than one ball and even then Chad only had two catches.

In theory it would appear that had the Raiders put together a better plan to contain Welker then we might have seen a different result Sunday.

Well, that would be true if the Raiders fared better against the league’s worst running game.
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Turnovers Torment Raiders in 31-19 Loss to Patriots

Chris Shellcroft — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:50:18 +0000

The Oakland Raiders gave the New England Patriots all they could handle and in the end it was the silver and black that stood in their own way. Don’t let the final score fool you. This was not a dominant Pats performance by any means.

In fact the Raiders held the ball longer than the Pats, converted over 60% of their third downs compared to 44% for New England and even gained over 500 yards of total offense against the Belichick bunch.

In the end it was the Raiders that would prove to be their own worst enemy.

Once again the ugly face of pointless penalties reared its ugly face. Richard Seymour might have been a little too fired up for his revenge as he kept the Pats’ first drive alive with two painful penalties. The first flag against Seymour was debatable as he was hit for a roughing call on a play that (by rule) never truly occurred. Since when did it matter what happens after an offense is flagged for a pre-snap penalty?

But that point became pointless once Seymour gave this former team more free yards thanks to a face mask.

From there out it was more of the same.

The Raiders moved the rock with ease on offense as they owned the porous Pats’ D.

Darren McFadden and Michael Bush ran though the chowder chumps like they weren’t even there. Once again Hue Jackson’s bully abused an opponent in physical fashion.

Still you can’t talk about this game without mentioning two key turnovers courtesy of Jason Campbell.
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