The Raiders are only one game into the post-Chip Kelly era, and the results from Sunday’s game against the Chargers weren’t a lot different than the 11 weeks going into the game.
It’s hard to draw conclusions after just one game, but the one thing we did learn on Sunday is that the strange offensive line shuffles did not end with Kelly’s departure.
Third-round pick Caleb Rogers started the game against the Chargers at right guard but ended up splitting snaps with Atonio Mafi.
Rogers played only 17 snaps in the game but was the highest-graded Raiders’ offensive lineman in the game by Pro Football Focus.
Lincoln Kennedy was a guest on the Raiders’ flagship radio station on Tuesday and said he didn’t like the team’s decision go back-and-forth between Rogers and Tafi at right guard.
“I’ve never liked alternating offensive linemen in and out of the game. You make a decision to go with whomever it is and you leave them in the game. If they struggle, then obviously there’s a change. But I’ve never liked alternating between linemen, because you can’t get into a rhythm,” Kennedy said on the Raider Nation Radio’s Unnecessary Roughness with Q Myers.
“More times than not, if the series is a buzz and you only go out there for one series and you’ve got three, four plays, and then you have to sit for how many plays the defense is out there, and then the next series, I think you just get cold. You get lathered up, you get ready to go, you get pumped up, leave them out there on the field,” Kennedy continued.
“Let them make the mistakes you corrected in the film. If it’s not too egregious, you don’t have to keep dancing back and forth but make a decision to showcase your young talent to allow them to develop, because they need as many plays as possible.”
Rogers and Mafi both played reasonably well against the Chargers, but it continues to be a mystery why the coaching staff doesn’t put rookies on the field more when the season has been in the tank for nearly a month.
Second-round pick Jack Bech was another rookie that looked good in a limited role, but Bech was only on the field for 27 of the team’s 48 offensive snaps.
Tre Tucker played 46 offensive snaps on Sunday, and it seems obvious that the coaching staff views him as the team’s no. 1 receiver since Jakobi Meyers was traded to the Jaguars.
Speaking of Meyers, he has 18 receptions and two touchdowns in four games since being traded to the Jaguars. And here’s an interesting statistical nugget on Meyers in his last 8 games…
In his final four games with the Raiders, Meyers caught 16 passes and averaged 7.7 yards per reception. In Meyers’ first four games with the Jaguars, his 18 receptions have come at a clip of 15.3 yards per reception.
The offense in Las Vegas is, without a doubt, broken and it’s going to be a challenge for the decision makers in the Raiders’ building to evaluate players on a broken offense.
At his current rate in Jacksonville, Meyers would end a full season with 77 receptions, 1,041 receiving yards and 8 touchdowns.
That’s a big difference from the production he was having in Chip Kelly’s offense, and Meyers probably isn’t even fully comfortable in the Jaguars offense yet.
x: @raidersbeat
The Jags are showing that with the right HC and GM, a team’s fortunes can turn for the better rather quickly. We need a young offensive minded HC, bit it’s essential that we get the right GM to stockpile the talent to give the HC a chance to be successful. I know we don’t have the right HC and possibly we need an experienced GM, as well.