2017 Oakland Raiders: Third quarter report card
By John Buhler
Defense
It’s hard to really understand if the Raiders defense is getting better or if the team has benefited largely from playing awful teams. The defense surrendered 33 to New England on a neutral site, which was bad. However, the Raiders held the Dolphins at home to 24 points and the Broncos and Giants below 20 the last two weeks.
Oakland did make a coaching change midway through this third quarter. After getting embarrassed by the Patriots, the Raiders fired Ken Norton Jr. and promoted assistant head coach John Pagano as the new defensive coordinator. Though still early in the process for him, Pagano has had his secondary play with better discipline, neutralized the running game and has gotten great play out of his pass rush.
It took until Week 12, but the Raiders finally forced an interception. All the Raiders needed was Paxton Lynch to make a terrible read at the one-yard line, have a few players bat it around and have inside linebacker NaVorro Bowman catch the tipped pass while laying on his back.
Overall, it’s a tail of two halves in this quarter. It started out poorly, but the Raiders have come on in the last two weeks. To be totally transparent, their last two wins were against backup quarterbacks in Lynch and Geno Smith. You have to like what you’ve seen out of Pagano thus far, but this is still not a great defense for Oakland.
Grade: C+