FanPost

Week 16 Armchair Scouting Report, Prediction, and Poll: Las Vegas Raiders

This is so fun. While it's not technically accurate, the Dolphins are now in virtual playoff mode. With the extremely high likelihood that the Ravens will win their final two games against the far inferior Giants and Bengals, the Dolphins must follow suit and win their final two to guarantee a trip to the postseason. This has shaped into one of the toughest Wildcard races, with the best teams, that I can recall in some time.

Without getting into all the combinations, permutations, and other confounding possibilities at play, we'll keep our focus on the next opponent: the Las Vegas Raiders. Jon Gruden's Raiders, now in the third year of the Gruden rebuild, fell to 7-7 last week and now only have the slimmest of chances of getting into the playoffs (seriously, it's in the neighborhood of half of one percent). Here's how the numbers stack up:

The Tale of the Tape

The following are each team's key stats, per game, according to pro-football-reference.com and espn.com:

Game 15
Dolphins Raiders
Passing Yards 221.4 (25th) 253.1 (14th)
Rushing Yards 106.3 (22nd) 121.9 (12th)
Points Scored 25.1 (16th) 26.9 (11th)
Pass Yards Allowed 238.1 (18th) 259.6 (26th)
Run Yards Allowed 120 (19th) 125.8 (25th)
Points Allowed 18.4 (2nd) 30.1 (29th)
Net Turnovers 10 (4th) -6 (tied, 25th)
Penalty Yards 38.5 (3rd) 50.4 (19th)

Not super great for the Raiders, if the numbers are anything to go on.

Their offensive numbers aren't bad, With all the simple ones being in the top half of the league, though not in the top 10. This tracks, considering that they do have some solid skill position guys like Derek Carr, Josh Jacobs, Darren Waller and a few others. But all of those other numbers speak to many far below average aspects to the team, most obviously a defense that seems to have no meaningful, large-scale strength at all. When you throw in the really poor turnover numbers and a higher-than-league-average amount of penalty yards per game, it makes for the profile of a fairly poor team.

But the Raiders are 7-7, and didn't they beat some really tough opponents earlier this year? Yes, which is why it pays to watch some of their games.

In the course of scouting other teams this season, I've actually watched the Raiders pretty closely several times. In game 8, they looked really shaky but beat an even shakier, poorly-coached Chargers team. The next week, their offense locked back in and they buried a hapless-looking Broncos team (who would beat us the next week). In game 12, they oh-so-narrowly avoided losing to the Jets, thanks to New York once again shooting its own wings off.

So I've seen more of the later-stage, perhaps-melting-down Raiders, and they're a weird bunch. To get the most recent version, I sat down and caught most of their Thursday Night home game against the 4-9 Chargers:

LA Chargers at Las Vegas Raiders

The most notable thing about this game was that Derek Carr went down with out with a pulled groin fairly early, forcing Marcus "#2 Overall Draft Pick Not All That Long Ago" Mariota into service. The two teams went back and forth all through regulation, with neither one pulling away. The standout offensive performers were Justin Herbert and Jalen Guyton for LA and Darren Waller for Vegas. Mariota did also remind us that he can still move fairly well, and that he's not easy to bring down, rushing 9 times for 88 yards and a TD. It wasn't exactly an "ugly" game during regulation; it was just that both teams kept missing opportunities here and there to clamp down and take the win.

It was at the end of regulation and in overtime that it became almost farcical. With 6:16 left in regulation, the Raiders tied the score, 24-24, on a 2-yard Mariota TD run. The Chargers get the ball and efficiently march down the field before getting stopped on the Raiders 28 yard line. From there, Michael Badgley misses the 47-yard field goal, turning the ball over the Las Vegas with 3:44 left. The Raiders, now looking like they actually know what to do, zoom into Chargers territory, getting to their 21 yard line in 90 seconds. Mariota then throws a goofy interception which is returned 51 yards, setting the Chargers up for a perfect chance at stealing the win. Already at the Raiders 33 yard line, the Chargers do absolutely nothing except burn their three downs and about a minute of clock, leaving 0:58 and sending Badgley back out there to try and redeem himself with a probably-game-winning 51-yard field goal. Badgley misses again, giving the Raiders yet another chance at it. But Las Vegas fails to move the ball, and we head to overtime.

I'll spare you all the details of overtime. Suffice it to say, both offenses went into classic "one step forward, two steps back" mode for most of the extra period. The Raiders hit a go-ahead field goal with 3:22 left, but then allowed Justin Herbert and the Chargers offense to march all the way down the field and score the game-winning touchdown on a QB sneak. Chargers go to 5-9, and the Raiders drop to 7-7.

This is not a game I would recommend to someone looking for high-caliber NFL football. It wasn't awful, so much as it was just sad seeing two teams with some very legit talent held back by what seems to be poor coaching and preparation. I would actually direct you all to this article that covers just this (along with other bad coaching from Week 14) here, in an article by one of my favorite NFL writers, Mike Tanier. The whole thing is a fun read, but the Gruden section is the "$100 Million Dollar Man" part.

What I Saw from the Raiders

You got a little bit of everything from Las Vegas here to help answer the question, "How does a team manage to beat or hang with some of the best teams in the NFL, but also look so awful at times?" The Raiders clearly have some talented players. Though he got knocked out of this game early, Carr was looking OK. And in two of the previous games I saw him, he looked quite sharp. But against the Chargers in Week 9, he looked very shaky at times, and it very nearly cost the Raiders the game. This is due quite a bit to the fact that the Raiders offensive line is also very inconsistent. Their pass protection looks fine on paper (9th best in fewest sacks allowed), but when you watch the games you realize that a lot of this is due to Carr being very good at making quick decisions and getting the ball out in under 2 seconds. A lesser QB would be getting pressured, flushed out, and sacked far more often. Carr can get pressured into being less accurate, though, if you can get creative with the timing and design of blitzes.

Which brings up the rest of the offense. With Carr under center, the Raiders do have a solid passing game, since there are some legitimate pass catchers. Tight end Darren Waller is a beast, and he went off for 150 yards and a TD on 9 catches in this game. And the speedy Nelson Agholor is having a really nice redemption season, after never quite shaking off his drop problems in Philadelphia. Even second tight end Foster Moreau looks like a solid contributor. It's no accident that this team has put up some decent passing yards this season. When the QB duties were taken over by Marcus Mariota - known for his erratic accuracy - those reliable WRs and TEs helped make life really easy for him (as did a confused Chargers defense).

The run game is similar. Josh Jacobs is a very talented young back. So talented, in fact, that he can make the mediocre offensive line look better than it is at times. In this game, without Carr to keep the defense a bit more honest, Jacobs was limited to 76 yards and a TD on 26 carries. This includes his longest, a 20-yard run. Take that one away, and his average was a shade over two yards per each of the other 25 carries. Not great at all.

The Raiders defense looked very much like the bottom-quartile bunch that their numbers indicate. Even missing their star #1 receiver Keenan Allen for most of the game, Justin Herbert and the Chargers got most of what they wanted, even if they made it more difficult than it had to be much of the time (a specialty of head coach Anthony Lynn). Once Allen was out, Herbert spread the ball around nicely to five other receivers, racking up 314 yards and 2 touchdowns through the air.

When one looks at the Chargers' rushing numbers from this game - 29 runs for 96 yards - you might think that the Raiders' run defense did a really good job. That is, until you look closer and see that 8 of those Chargers runs were by...wait for it...Kalen Ballage, for a grand total of 11 yards (and of course, the patented Kalen Ballage 1-yard TD). So you take away Ballage and his legendary propensity for running directly into defenders at the line of scrimmage, and the Chargers did OK on the ground.

As far as other areas, the Raiders didn't show much in the way of second-tier aspects of the game. Their special teams are nothing to speak of, and they commit quite a few penalties (some of which were pretty damaging). And as far as coaching, I will once again refer you to the C'mon Coach article by Mike Tanier, who does a great job breaking down Gruden's several gaffs with managing the clock, timeouts, and challenges.

Summary and Prediction

Sounds like it's going to be Carr under center, which makes a difference. Given this, and that Henry Ruggs III will be back, I expect the Raiders to have some offensive success, but not to put on a fireworks show. Our defense looks to be getting fully healthy once again, and they just keep improving. Even if they can't rattle Carr enough to go into "bad Carr" mode, I think our secondary can limit the damage that he and those top receivers of his can do.

And while I don't expect our run defense to shut down Josh Jacobs, I also don't think he runs wild on us. Our last game against a run-happy Patriots team was evidence to me that our run defense has been figuring some things out, and the Raiders run game, while good, isn't so transcendently good that it should have a field day against us.

Offensively, we should be fine, especially if we get a couple of our more experienced pass-catchers back. I didn't see the Keenan Allen-less, Kalen Ballage-inflicted Chargers do a whole lot against the Raiders defense that our offense can't do at least as well. Going into the game against us last week, the Pats' run defense had ranked 23rd in rushing yards allowed, and we put up 250 on the ground against them. The Raiders give up the 25th-most rushing yards per game, so those are roughly equivalent. Mix in that we're definitely getting Myles Gaskin and DeVante Parker back, with a high probability that Mike Gesicki and Jakeem Grant return, as well. Add onto all of that the fact that the Raiders will once again be without formidable rookie defensive end Clelin Ferrell, and I think we should be able to put up some points.

And once again, I give us an overwhelming leg up in all the other areas. Las Vegas's kicker and special teams aren't good. Ours are excellent. Jon Gruden, despite his notoriety and Superbowl ring, hasn't been an especially great coach these past two seasons. Brian Flores has. I give our guys the nod in all these areas.

Prediction: Dolphins 34, Raiders 24

Yep, I'm calling for a solid, 10-point win. One that might even be more impressive than the final scores, with maybe the Raiders tacking on a face-saving TD in the final few minutes. Here are how my picks have gone thus far:

Game # Opponent Prediction Outcome
1 @Patriots none L, 23-11
2 Bills none L, 31-28
3 @Jaguars W, 34-24 W, 31-13
4 Seahawks L, 24-31 L, 23-31
5 @49ers none W, 43-17
6 @Jets W, 37-17 W, 24-0
7 Rams W, 27-24 W, 28-17
8 @Cardinals W, 24-21 W, 34-31
9 Chargers W, 31-17 W, 29-21
10 @Broncos W, 34-13 L, 13-20
11 @Jets W, 21-17 W, 20-3
12 Bengals W, 27-10 W, 19-7
13 Chiefs L, 27-34 L, 27-33
14 Patriots W, 27-13 W, 22-12
15 @Raiders W, 34-24 ????


Still doing well with the overall picks and the margins of victory. Let's all hope for at least one more week of the same.

As always, let me know in the poll and comments what you think will happen in this virtual playoff game for our Dolphins. Have a great holiday filled with warmth, happiness, and love, everyone!

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of The Phinsider's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of The Phinsider writers or editors.