The Las Vegas Raiders know what the road will look like in 2022, and here, we lay out five of their must-win games.
The 2022 Las Vegas Raiders schedule was released this past Thursday. Without sugarcoating anything, it is a really tough schedule. Therefore, if the Raiders are going to make the playoffs for the second year in a row; it will be earned.
It was hard to narrow it down to five must-win games because they are going to have to win these five games and quite a few more to make the playoffs. Here are the most important five games and the keys to victory are as follows.
Raiders 2022 Schedule: Top-5 Must-Win games
Week 2 vs. Arizona:
The Raiders’ home opener against the Arizona Cardinals is a must-win for sure. It will be a good challenge for the Raiders early in the season because the Cardinals usually collapse late in the season. Particularly for the defense. We will be able to find out if the Raiders have improved enough to contain high-powered, explosive offenses because they will be playing a lot of them this year.
So if the Raiders are going to win this game, it will come down to the front four applying pressure on Kyler Murray and disrupting the game plan Kliff Kingsbury orchestrated. Last season, the Cardinals were ranked 8th in total offense, led by Murray and Kingsbury, and the key stat, however, was 31 which was the number of times Murray was sacked.
So anticipate some key matchups like edge rushers Maxx Crosby and former Cardinal, Chandler Jones against the Cardinals tackles D.J Humphries and Kelvin Beachum.
Other units will be tested in this game. For example, the Raiders’ secondary will have to find a way to contain the talented Cardinals receivers like Marquise “Hollywood” Brown who will be filling in for DeAndre Hopkins who will be suspended from this game for violating the league’s performance-enhancing policy.