Los Angeles Chargers at Las Vegas Raiders: 3 bold predictions in Week 15

Raiders defense improves under Marinelli

Just listening to Rod Marinelli’s first presser as the defensive coordinator made me feel better than any Paul Guenther’s did in the little more than two and a half years he spent with the team. He spoke on things that were very much true, there are a few things players can control that don’t take talent, their effort, their pursuit, and gang tackling.

This has been one of the worst tackling defenses I have ever seen, always taking bad angles to the ball carrier, and they almost always seem to be in a bad position every time they take the field. While most of that is coaching, and some is communication, the fact is, this team has to be better on defense.

When Guenther got hired, a lot of people wouldn’t, including myself, admit that the last couple of years of his Bengals days were pretty bad. To be honest, I think we were mostly just excited to get rid of Ken Norton Jr., but we literally just saw one of the worst jobs of coaching defenses there has ever been.

I know the defense is going to be without Clelin Ferrell, Nick Morrow, and Johnathan Abram, and they may not shut out the Chargers tonight, but it can’t really be worse than what we’ve seen the past two weeks can it? If it is, the Raiders will fall to 7-7.