Barring an unexpected ruling by the league, the Raiders will travel to Buffalo this weekend without Marshawn Lynch, who was suspended for grabbing an official on Thursday night.
Lynch is averaging 3.7 yards per carry this season and some have suggested the Raiders should spread the field and lean the offense more on DeAndre Washington and Jalen Richard.
On Sunday, that’s exactly what the Raiders will try to do (they don’t have much of a choice) and the Bills might just be the team to try it against.
Buffalo is giving up an average of only 3.4 yards per carry (4th-best in the NFL) and teams have been forced to challenge the Bills through the air. The Raiders will miss Lynch in short yardage situations, but Carr has been more comfortable throwing to Washington and Richard.
Lynch has just four receptions on 10 targets on the season, while Washington and Richard have combined for 26 receptions on 32 targets.
The Raiders offense got a jumpstart last week against the Chiefs and it will be interesting to see if they can keep the momentum this week without Lynch.
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Do we know if Elijah Hood has earned an opportunity for a 1-game call-up from the practice squad?
Use Olawale in short yardage. He’s far more effective than Lynch. Promote Hood from the practice squad. Either of those solutions will be an improvement over Least Mode
If we had a competent OC, then Lynch would be BEAST MODE. Thursday night was a nice change from what we had been seeing, but I am still skeptical that Downing will be able to duplicate the success. We need to string together a few games like that before we start talking about playoffs. Downing needs to abandon the zone blocking scheme completely and get back to what made us the 6th ranked offense. When that is done we will see Lynch shredding defenses because he still can. Our talent is not being used correctly by Downing.