It’s been 10 games and the Week 11 loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football showed that the Las Vegas Raiders have no direction under head coach Pete Carroll. Not only were the Raiders thoroughly embarrassed on a national stage, again, but Carroll refuses to play the young players on the roster despite the team being well under .500 and outside of the playoff race.
That leaves little room for positivity in this week’s winners and losers column.
LOSER: Pete Carroll
During the game, Chip Kelly took plenty of
heat for the offensive play-calling and Ashton Jeanty’s lack of touches. However, during the post-game press conferences, Carroll admitted that it was his decision: “There’s only one person to look at, it’s me, because I was influencing the game plan.” While the accountability is nice, it’s another example of his refusal to focus on developing the Raiders’ rookies.
That’s on top of the situation with Caleb Rogers, where he not only didn’t start, but Carroll also opted to activate Atonio Mafi from the practice squad over the rookie. The head coach then justified his decision by saying that he’s “trying to win the games”.
Well, refusing to play the young guys has led to two wins, while moving Jordan Meredith back to guard led to his worst game of the season, and starting Will Putnam led to a team-low 34.5 offensive grade from Pro Football Focus for the center as he was dominated all night. Call me a skeptic, but I have a hard time buying that Rogers would have been much worse than that.
This is without even mentioning the fact that Tyler Lockett is getting more playing time than Dont’e Thornton Jr. and Jack Bech, Kyu Blu Kelly is still starting over Darien Porter, and Jamin Davis took snaps over Tommy Eichenberg and Cody Lindenberg on Monday night.
Whether it’s John Spytek, Mark Davis or whoever, someone needs to step up and talk some sense into Carroll.
LOSER: Patrick Graham
Las Vegas has given up at least 30 points in five out of its last eight games, and the team was a missed throw by Dak Prescott away from surrendering 40 points for the third time during that period. Granted, a safety by the offense was a factor in the scoring, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Cowboys’ offense averaged nearly six yards per play and the Raiders’ defense was awful on Monday night.
Graham has survived a couple of coaching changes already, but with the entire coaching staff on the hot seat to finish the campaign, it’s looking like he’s running out of lives.
LOSER: Dylan Parham & DJ Glaze
While Stone Forsythe, Putnam and Meredith could also be listed as ‘losers’, Forsythe and Putnam are backups who are only playing because of injuries, while Meredith was forced to move to a position that he hasn’t played since training camp. In other words, it’s reasonable that those three struggled, but the Raiders needed their two starters who were playing their normal positions to step up instead of being part of the problem.
According to PFF, Parham (51.2) finished as the offense’s fourth-lowest graded player and gave up four pressures in pass protection, while Glaze (43.2) was second-to-last and surrendered five pressures. The latter was also the Silver and Black’s worst run-blocker with a mark of 37.6 in that department. Clearly, both linemen failed to rise to the occasion.
LOSER: Kyu Blu Kelly
A week after recording two interceptions to be a ‘winner’ and earn his starting spot back, Kelly regressed and should be headed back to the bench. He was targeted five times and yielded a team-high five receptions, 75 yards, two touchdowns and a perfect 158.3 passer rating, per PFF. This isn’t new for the cornerback who has given up the third-most receiving yards (488) in the NFL this season, so there’s no reason he should be on the field moving forward.
LOSER: Isaiah Pola-Mao
On a similar note, Pola-Mao was targeted four times and gave up four receptions for 47 yards, a touchdown and a 155.2 passer rating. He’s now up to 303 receiving yards (eighth-most among safeties) and five touchdowns (tied for second-most among safeties) allowed on the season. Also, the fourth-year pro missed three more tackles against Dallas, pushing him up to 13 on the year (tied for the second-most at his position) at a career-high 19.7 miss rate.
WINNER: Maxx Crosby
While there wasn’t much to get excited about from the Raiders, Crosby turned in an elite performance to earn the highest PFF grade (91.2) among edge defenders in Week 11, beating out Myles Garrett by 0.4 points. Crosby managed to record seven pressures, including a strip sack, while also recording the second-highest run defense grade (80.9) among edges and tying for the most defensive stops as a run defender (four) at his position.
At this point, the four-time Pro Bowler is one of the few reasons to pay attention to the 2-8 club over the next couple of months.
