Geno Smith threw for 362 yards in a 20-13 win over the New England Patriots on Sunday, and every indication after one regular game is that the Raiders have found a quarterback they can feel good about.
Head coach Pete Carroll acknowledged in May that when he took the Raiders’ job, it was already in his plan to bring Smith to Las Vegas, and the CBS broadcast dropped another interesting nugget on Smith’s relationship with his new offensive coordinator.
“[There is] a long connection between Chip Kelly and Geno Smith. He actually tried to recruit Smith to Oregon when he was the head coach there,” CBS play by play commentator Spero Dedes said during Sunday’s broadcast.
“One interesting thing Chip said yesterday. He takes more input from Geno Smith. Maybe more than any quarterback that he has coached.”
Going into the season, the consensus seemed to be that Kelly and Carroll were going to feature a run-heavy offense, but against the Patriots they ran the ball just 22 times while Smith dropped back to pass 38 times.
The Raiders’ offensive line had ups and downs on Sunday, but they particularly struggled in the running game as Ashton Jeanty had nowhere to run on the majority of his 19 carries. The no. 6 overall pick in this year’s draft gained just 38 yards on those 19 carries but put the Raiders in the lead for good on a difficult three-yard run early in the third quarter.
Ultimately, it was the Raiders’ passing attack that carried the team on Sunday, and the Patriots did, in fact, miss Christian Gonzalez.
x: @raidersbeat
This was old news. Going into the off-season OL was a major need and they signed Alex Cappa. Not exactly an inspiring choice. Moving JPJ to guard so far has been a terrible choice. Either Meredith isn’t getting the protection correct or multiple lineman are just getting beat constantly. How do you invest the #6 on a smaller, slower RB when the team needed more playmakers than a RB
Well as far as the offensive line, I’ll give them a couple of weeks to come together as a unit. During the pre-season the was constantly being changed around. That doesn’t help and this unit needs to be left alone as far as players a d let the line coach work with them.