We learned a few things about the Raiders offense on Sunday, and not a lot that we learned was particularly encouraging.
It’s going to take time for Luke Getsy’s offense to come together in his first year, but he shared a detail about the team’s running back situation that might be noteworthy to fantasy football-minded folks.
Getsy was asked at Thursday’s press conference if Alexander Mattison was going to be in for a greater role at running back going forward, and while Getsy didn’t say ‘yes,’ it definitely sounds like Zamir White isn’t going to be a featured runner in the Raiders’ offense anytime soon.
“I guess the answer is ‘no’ as far as [Mattison] having a bigger role than we anticipated. We feel good about both of those guys,” Getsy said of White and Mattison.
“You can’t play in this league with just one [running back] and we feel really good about the group that we have,” Getsy continued. “I think every week each guy gives us a cool little matchup for who we’re going against and so think there’s going to be weeks where Alex gets a little bit more and there’s going to be weeks [where] maybe he doesn’t.”
One of the details since Sunday that hasn’t been talked about a lot was White’s patience and vision running the ball. There were times where he could have been a little more patient and other times where he maybe didn’t pick the best running lane. Of course, there were a lot more cases where he didn’t have anywhere to run, at all.
Raiders color commentator Lincoln Kennedy talked about the deficiencies along the Raiders’ offensive line in week one and he believes it’s going to take some time before the running game will hit its stride behind an offensive line that hasn’t taken a lot of reps together.
“The offensive line has to be able to open up holes and it was very frustrating, the fact that nothing got done, you know, during the Charger game,” Kennedy said this week on his The Morning Grind podcast. “Second down and one, third down and one, fourth down and one. They couldn’t pick it up. It’s a little disheartening.”
“To me, the reflection goes on the fact this offensive line hasn’t played together,” Kennedy continued. “Keep in mind, the guys on the other side of the ball get paid, too… it’s not like it’s going to be an easy win all the time. But when you talk about playing together and being together, I think that resonates, because on the lines that I played with and we had success on short yardage, there were a couple of things that were all part of it…
Go back to the days of Zack Crockett. Zack Crockett was familiar with how we blocked 14 Blast, so he knew where to hit the hole. A little bit of a different blocking scheme… than where we are now, but my point is that collectively as an offensive line, we had to play together and this offensive line that started this past weekend against the Chargers has not played collectively together. You’ve had bits and pieces here and there, but they have not played together. That resonates when it comes to being effective.”
It will be interesting to see how the Raiders offensive backfield plays out going forward, but it sounds like Getsy is going to be a little unpredictable with his running backs.
If you happen to be a fantasy footballer, the Raiders backfield might not be one you can trust for the foreseeable future.
x: @raidersbeat
Hey! Raiders and media can talk hype all day but we aren’t a good team! what we need are big moves by the team to try to win! fans base have listened to too much hype! fans are naive because they think Silver & Black colors make up the team but it’s Al’s legacy and the people running a team that is supposed to show some kind of commitment to fans and winning.
What we getting is a business and that’s nothing new and it can be o.k.-to-great for some teams if the team is committed to winning or/ and uses the system right. But in our case we are getting a corporate attitude that is about making money and then football. They manage the team to stay under the salary cap and try to win by getting the cheapest players that’s o.k. to save money and try to use cheaper players if they’re good players. But the Raiders have some thin defensive units and they refuse to sign star veteran free agents or trade for good players mainly because they don’t want to pay them.
Al would take more chances and sign busts, washed up stars or elite/ star players and spend more money on players. The new Raiders need to do something to try and win and stop all of this business like attitude they want to run the team with. The mom&pop attitude was great for us we don’t have to copy Al but maybe some of his ideas might help us. We don’t have a culture, we have a corporate system that is managing the money and players. Nothing wrong with corporate systems/ business like attitudes, some teams have succeeded with them but maybe the new Raiders should use old school ideas, make more moves and motivate their staff to play with the offense and try new game plans to try and win. Maybe they can get the fans and players excited and find plays that can beat good teams.
I watched a very poorly called offensive game Sunday. Getsy was a poor hire