King’s Kourt: Oakland Raiders shredded by the Packers

The Oakland Raiders have been pretty successful through the first six games, but they were handled by the Green Bay Packers on Sunday.

The Green Bay Packers are notorious for having monumental games against the Oakland Raiders, as they blew them out in Super Bowl II, in 2003 in an emotional Monday night game Hall of Fame QB Brett Favre lit the Raiders up for 399 yards and 4 touchdowns.

On Sunday, future Hall of Fame QB Aaron Rodgers dissected the Raiders defense with surgical precision and pinpoint accuracy utilizing a receiving squad reserved for the deep recesses of a 12-man fantasy football team bench.

The Raiders went into the game with a plan, “get Josh Jacobs the ball” and that they did. Jacobs rushed for 124 yards on 21 carries averaging 5.9 yards and had a 42 yard beauty that set the Raiders up for a Daniel Carlson field goal.

There’s a famous quote in the game of football, “Football is a game of inches and inches make the champion” and ironically this quote was first penned by legendary Head Coach of the Packers, Vince Lombardi. While the score doesn’t reflect the outcome, the Raiders offense wasn’t stifled, rather, in a game of inches, the Raiders fell short too many times in the red zone.

A costly fumble through the end zone by Derek Carr that quickly hearkened the dark reminder of the infamous index card game against Dallas in 2017 and was the first shift in momentum. The Packers offense set up on the 20 yard line and proceeded to drive the ball 80 yards down the field on 7 plays capped by a 37 yard touchdown pass from Aaron Rodgers to Jake Kumerow leaving 12 seconds on the clock in the half.

In the start of the second half, the Packers received the ball and once again drove the length of the field 78 yards to lead to another score (Spoiler alert, they’d do this three more times) to which the Raiders answered with a 75-yard drive which resulted in a Darren Waller touchdown, his first of two on the day. For every Raiders action, the Packers had an equal or opposite reaction, for the Raiders this Sunday, ball movement wasn’t an issue as the Raiders only punted twice.

Turnovers and penalties (as well as missed calls) killed drives offensively, the Raiders nearly eclipsed 100 yards in penalties negating 3 scores as well as a red zone interception after Waller was tripped up on a Pass Interference non-call and a goal line stop of Josh Jacobs on 4th and 1.

This game was frustrating to say the least, not only because of missed opportunities, but because of blown coverages. In what had been the best called game by Jon Gruden and the most complete game by Carr, minus the fumble, of the season in which the offense was virtually automatic, we saw our hopes of this game being winnable to unbearable before our eyes.

While there were various parts of this game that were frustrating, what wasn’t was the big time play of the young players on the Raiders, Josh Jacobs, Darren Waller, Foster Moreau and Maxx Crosby. You can truly see a foundational change happening with this team, and with a strong mix of veteran and young leaders fans have something to get excited about. Coach Gruden and Mr. Mayock are building a strong nucleus of men who are working together to return the Commitment to Excellence.

The Raiders take on their final opponent of this never-ending road trip in an afternoon game vs a Houston Texans team that is coming off of a loss to the Colts, the Raiders are looking to regroup and improve to 4-3. As the trade deadline looms, the Raiders are beginning to make roster moves to become more competitive and have traded former first round cornerback Gareon Conley to the Texans for a third round pick.