Week 14 against the Kansas City Chiefs was a forgettable one. The Oakland Raiders must regroup and prepare for another divisional game, this time against the San Diego Chargers. Against the Chargers, targeting Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree, feeding Latavius Murray, and forcing Philip Rivers into third and long will be the Oakland Raiders week 15 keys to victory.
Oakland Raiders Week 15 Keys to Victory
Get Coop and Crab the Ball Early and Often
Seth Roberts is not good. He’s got below average size, far below average hands, average speed and average athleticism. Against the Chiefs he had nine targets and turned those nine targets into three registered drops, two catches for 12 yards, and four more incompletions. He will surprise the Raiders with one tough catch, or a brilliant clutch catch and run that turns into a touchdown (he has five receiving touchdowns on the year, good enough for second most on the team) but far too often he fails to reel in an on target pass on third down in key moments.
For some reason against the Chiefs facing a critical third and one late in the game Carr threw a fade to Andre Holmes, who is a career special teamer, not a game changer. The pass was incomplete and forced a fourth and one. Fourth and one target with the game and likely AFC West on the line? Seth Roberts. That is not winning football.
Raiders can clinch a playoff birth for the first time in 14 years on Sunday and to do that they’re going to need to get their best two players on offense the ball. Enter Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree. Crabtree has had some serious problems as of late holding onto the ball, but Cooper should be more than capable of picking up the slack.
Cooper is an elite talent on the verge of becoming an elite player, he should be receiving double digit targets every game. Aside from Cooper and Crabtree the Raiders other receiving options are all very average, getting the ball to two very good playmakers should take some pressure off Clive Walford, Roberts, and the running backs and open things up for them. When a defense has to put all its focus on two players even pedestrian skill players can inflate their stats in the box score and help move the chains.
Feed Latavius Murray
Week 14 may have been the worst game of Derek Carr’s career (against the Rams in 2014 he was worse and lost 52-0, but he was a rookie and that game was not a prime time matchup.) Carr will never admit it but the dislocated pinkie on his throwing hand in the frigid cold was a huge factor in how terrible he was.
Despite Carr’s struggles and the receiving core’s complete inability to make a single game changing play, Latavius Murray continued his best season racking up 103 yards and a touchdown on 22 caries. Murrays has looked as explosive and as powerful as he’s ever been and while he may not be an elite talent, he’s got all the tools necessary to be a productive quality back behind the Raiders offensive line.
If Carr’s pinkie isn’t there yet there’s not need for him to have to throw the ball 40 plus times a game. Let him manage the game with a few deep shots sprinkled in to keep the chargers honest and pound the rock. The Raiders were effective at establishing a power run game solely out of shotgun formations behind a determine offensive line that was missing its best player (Kelechi Osemele.) Against a Charger defense that is nowhere near as dominant as the Chiefs, the Raiders should not hesitate to give Murray 20 plus carries this weekend.
Make Philip Rivers Throw the Ball
Given River’s success against the Raiders secondary no matter whom the Raiders have fielded this might not seem like the best idea. However, Rivers lost his best offensive player left, Melvin Gordon, last week and promptly turned the ball over five times. Rivers is playing with a bunch of backups at the skill positions. The game plan is this, stop the run, forced third and long, make Rivers do too much and turn the ball over. The Chargers are an inferior team and the Raiders shouldn’t have a problem with this, but somehow Rivers will likely exploit the Raiders subpar secondary and high school schemes for chunk plays.
There is one thing the Raiders do have in this biannual Rivers matchup that should swing things their way: Khalil Mack. Mack is a beast and while feasting on averaging offensive lines, he’s still racked up 11.0 sacks and forced five fumbles with a pick six for good measure. He’s had three straight weeks with a strip sack, recovering the fumble in two of them and nearly recovering a fumble he forced last week but lost control trying to scoop and score.
The Chargers offensive line is average at best, its quite possible the Raiders DPOY candidate makes it a fourth straight week with a strip sack and his ninth straight week with at least one quarterback takedown. Its possible Mario Edwards returns and plays on a snap count this week, his return will bring the Raiders what they’ve been missing all year: interior pass rushing pressure.
This helps out Mack and the rest of the edge rushers in a big way. To make Rivers make mistakes the Raiders will have to make him uncomfortable, inevitably he’s going to try and do too much, but with a pass rush the Raiders should be able to force some turn overs and control the game from the start.
