Oakland Raiders will face elite edge rushers on Monday night football
Preseason football is over and regular season play is officially here. Let’s take a look at a couple prime matchups that will take place inside the trenches on Monday night football.
Week 1 matchups always have a tremendous amount of anticipation leading up to the game, let alone a Monday night football showcase. There will be many contested matchups, but one area to focus on will be how the Raiders offensive tackles stack up against the Broncos’ pair of premier edge rushers.
The Raiders are deeply invested in their offensive line, spending a 2018 first-round pick on Kolton Miller, and giving Trent Brown the largest contract in NFL history for an offensive tackle. Last season Derek Carr hit the turf a career-high 51 times, but Gruden holds a strong belief that his two starting tackles entering 2019 will be much improved.
The Denver Broncos’ not only possess one of the better duos off the edge, but they also brought abroad Vic Fangio to call the defense and be their new head coach. This will be Fangio’s first stint as a head coaching, generating speculation if he was correct suited for the job. Although, one thing that remains certain, Fangio is one of the better defensive minds in the league.
Von Miller and Bradley Chubb accumulated 26.5 sacks last season. Now, they’ve been gifted one of the better defensive play callers in football with the addition of Fangio.
Despite the Raiders inefficient pass protection last season, they held Denver’s duo of Miller and Chubb to just one sack over two games in 2018.
According to Pro Football Focus the Raiders offensive line comes in as the No.26th best unit in the league, whereas PFF also ranked Miller and Chubb as the fifth best edge tandem in the NFL.
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Carr’s best season of his career came in the same year where he had the least amount of pressure on his dropbacks, allowing just16 sacks. If Oakland’s offensive line can give Carr time in the pocket, that just might be the recipe for a successful week 1 victory.