After the Raiders embarrassing loss to the Cowboys on Monday night, we have officially reached a new chapter in the season.
It’s not an unfamiliar chapter for Raider fans, but this week is the first we’ve seen a few details leak from the locker room that had been kept under wraps for the first 11 weeks of the season.
When seasons go off track to the level the Raiders are experiencing right now, players, coaches and agents sometimes enter into “preservation mode” and that seems to be going on now in Las Vegas.
A report on Tuesday said Pete Carroll and GM John Spytek have not been “eye to eye” on things of late, and one of the issues Geno Smith has been dealing with in Chip Kelly’s offense surfaced later in the day.
Based on comments from Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter, Smith has not been give much freedom in Kelly’s offense.
“[Geno Smith] could be pointing fingers. He’s not doing that and I credit him for that,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast.
“I sincerely credit him for that,” Carpenter continued. “He’s a man of integrity. And he’s like, ‘You know what? That’s not what we practice and I’m going to stick with the coaching game plan.'”
“I respect him for that. Now he could have come out and said, ‘Yeah, I would like some more liberty.’ He didn’t. And so I think you’ve got to give more. He’s a 13-year vet. I think you have to say to him, ‘Geno, if they’re lining up, daring you to run and you’ve got the opportunity, you have to check into that.’
“Let’s just say that I believe he needs more liberty to do that. I don’t believe that he would say that. I don’t believe that he would throw anyone under the bus. But I am telling you, I think they need to give him more liberty to do that.”
Smith may not be pointing fingers, but he was visibly frustrated on Monday with some of the criticism he has received in the first half of the season.
“We got a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks who like to watch film and take screen shots [and] see when guys are open, so I’m sure you guys will see where guys are open,” Smith said after Monday’s game.
“For me, again, I just got to play better,” Smith continued. “I keep saying this. If something don’t look right out there, blame it on me. If it don’t look right, blame it on me. That’s all you can do. Blame it on me. The kids mess up as school, blame it on me. Car break down on the way to work, blame it on me.”
x: @raidersbeat
Can an NFL Team just forfeit the rest of the Season? LoL One Bright spot is a Significant Accomplishment. This team has entered the ranks in the Top Five Worst Teams ever to Play the Game… they have Wasted a Reasonable level of Talent through Exceptionally Poor Coaching (except maybe Patrick Graham). The Head Coach is stuborn and is a Horrific judge of talent… The OC won’t Listen to anybody and has a Track record to Prove it… They Literally Don’t Have a Offensive Line Coach at All!!! They are an EmBareAssMent to themselves and the Community. This is a Travesty and the staff and owner should be ashamed. AND now the players themselves are Finished. They Still want to Play hard and win, after all they are professionals, but their subconscience collective mind has diminished their skills (did You see the Tackling in this Game?) With the High picks this upcoming Draft… PLEASE No “Franchise” QB. OL and DL only for at least two Years. In the meantime how about playing some of this years Draftees? I know they haven’t really been coached but get them into the Game!!!~ They can’t do worse than what is happening now and at Least they would be trying to Prove that they belong… Again – In my Never to be Humble Opinion
Do u have confidence in the current GM’s ability to draft talented players? One could argue that his first draft was a monumental failure. I mean, on a team so poorly talented WHY aren’t any of his draft picks contributing much??? Based on this year, the entire Brady Bunch, front office and coaches are a failure. The team hasn’t improved, at all!
An Embarrassment. All phases of the game. It appears to be the plan is lose every game.
No coach can correct this amount bad performance. The Sunday football shows do not
Premier the Raiders, and I understand why.
He’s the worst QB in the entire league and this writer is wondering why he has limited freedom in this offense?
Is this for real?
It seems to me PC was planning to to bring Geno in from the beginning, he has said as much in interviews. Did he share this plan with MD? Another observation, Spytek comes from Tampa, who has drafted defense and a couple of good WRs, but what QB? They basically have had Brady and Mayfield, who both fell into their lap. They’ve been pretty average otherwise.
At this point I don’t want to draft a quarterback. We could have prime Tom Brady and he would be terrible behind this line and with this coaching staff.