King’s Kourt: Raiders receive a wake up call from lowly New York Jets

The Oakland Raiders were blasted by the New York Jets in Week 12, and maybe it was the wake up call this team needs to finish the job in 2019.

On Sunday the aklan Raiers played the New York Jets, and that’s not a typo. The “O” and “D” is missing because there was no offense or defense in the Raiders 34-3 loss. It was a disappointing game for a Raiders team looking to make the playoffs this season.

The game plan was to respect the Jets stout run defense while exploiting the mismatches in the secondary, and frankly the calls and throws were there. However, the team’s inability to catch and the Raiders one-dimensional attack proved to be costly for the Silver and Black in this one.

The Jets defense was too much for the Raiders to hold on. The Raiders abandoned the run early in the game, limiting Josh Jacobs to ten carries, while the rest of the offense including Derek Carr, who had the second longest run of the day on an 11 yard scamper, was limited to 10 carries.

Offensively, the Raiders had already eliminated themselves from the game when they failed to get pressure up front. A battle that was to be won in the trenches showed a dominant push from Jets defensive line from the start.

Defensively, it was the same issue, a unit that played outstanding against the Cincinnati Bengals a week earlier looked to be out-of-place for a majority of the game. Rookie standout Maxx Crosby had an efficient day, and finished with one sack and two tackles for loss ,and would have had another sack had there not been a bogus roughing the passer call on Maurice Hurst by Clete Blakeman’s officiating crew.

The refs had a rough day throughout, as they also failed to call a pass interference on a 3rd down play that broke the rib and punctured the lung of rookie wideout Hunter Renfrow. In addition, they missed a blatant helmet-to-helmet hit by Jamal Adams on Carr.

While the team has had bad outings this season, we haven’t seen such a game where the team as a whole wasn’t clicking since the Week 4 loss to the Minnesota Vikings. While the loss to the Vikings was a significant blow to the team, is also propelled the Raiders to play better in every aspect of the game and led to back to back wins against the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears.

Could this be the Wake up call that the Raiders needed?

Hopefully so, I am cautiously optimistic as the Raiders prepare to take on the Chiefs in Arrowhead, while history and stats are stacked against the team, hopefully the fire and desire in this young team propels them forward for Derek Carr’s first win at Arrowhead.