Las Vegas Raiders offensive keys against San Francisco 49ers, Digi Mart USA News: It took some time, but in their Week 8 matchup against the New York Jets, the Las Vegas Raiders got back to playing winning football. The first half was admittedly sloppy for both teams, but the Raiders ground out a hard-fought second half to beat the Jets and end their four-game losing streak.
It was far from pretty, as is sometimes the case in the National Football League. Still, the Raiders found a way to win a game they would almost certainly have lost last season.
Las Vegas continues to take care of business in games it is supposed to win.
Yet Week 8 reconfirmed that there are no guarantees, and the margin for error is thin. The Raiders now turn their attention to the San Francisco 49ers, who visit in Week 9 as the road team.
San Francisco is the better team by most metrics, but metrics don’t win games. Sunday will come down to execution and the Raiders’ ability to compensate in areas where they are clearly overmatched.
For that to happen, Las Vegas must fine-tune and speed up what worked last Sunday. Ideally, that starts with continued success on the ground.
Even if the Raiders gain only two or three yards per carry, a manageable third down keeps the offense in business.
If the Raiders have to feed Mike Washington again in Week 9, so be it. Ashton Jeanty out of the backfield has helped keep the passing attack afloat at times.
If Las Vegas can keep getting Jeanty the ball in space, the offensive line’s run blocking becomes less of an issue.
Finding a way to potentially get Jeanty and Washington on the field at the same time, along with Tre Tucker, Jalen Nailor and a healthy Jack Bech, would add another dimension to the offense. That could help negate some of the issues the unit has had against top competition.
Las Vegas must keep rotating a mix of running backs against opposing defenses, however slow the progress may feel at times. Each of the Raiders’ running backs brings a unique skill set, most of which remains largely unknown to upcoming opponents under Kubiak’s offense.
In Week 8, veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins sparked the offense’s best third quarter of the season. The offense’s second-half performance against the Jets may also have been the best second half of the season.
Cousins jump-started it right out of the gate.
The Raiders’ best third quarter began with Cousins’ dart to Brock Bowers, which opened things up for the unit and the rest of the game. The third quarter will once again prove vital for Las Vegas against a talented 49ers team in Week 9.
“I think the first play of the second half might have been the throw to Brock, and I thought that was a key play in the game and a great call by our coaches. That whole drive, to finish it, got us right back in the game, which we needed.
If you punt and they go down and score, it could be a whole different story,” Cousins said earlier this week.
“So, it’s very important, and we’ve got to be really strong in the third quarter the rest of the way. I felt we have continued to play well in the fourth quarter last week, but it’s a four-quarter game.
You’ve got to do it, all four of them.”
Raiders offensive coordinator Andrew Janocko looks forward to the challenge of facing one of the league’s best.
“I think we do our film study. They’re going to do their film study on us.
We’re going to find new and unique ways to attack defenses. It’s a new play caller, so it’s a new system.
As far as what we saw last year, I know some of the players are the same, and they’ve been retooled too,” Janocko said earlier this week.
“They’ve gotten some new pieces. They’ve gotten some guys back from injury, so that’s something we look forward to going on the road and using as a good measuring stick.”
