Kenny Pickett will be a free agent after the 2025 season and the former first-round pick most likely understands he won’t be back with the Raiders next year.
That understanding may have been the reason Pickett was a little more honest after Sunday’s loss than we are used to seeing from quarterbacks in postgame press conferences.
Pickett said one of the keys to the Raiders’ lack of success on offense was their inability to block the Eagles four-man pass rush, but it was a comment on the play-calling that stood out even more.
“I think we got to mix it up a little bit. Gun runs, under center, we can’t let them tee off on tendencies,” Pickett said.
“I felt like they were a beat faster than us on certain things this week during the game. Beating us to the punch on blocks. I don’t know what our tells are, but we have to go take a look at that and see what we have going on.”
Pickett has been in the league long enough to know when opposing defenses have a beat on plays, and “tells” have been a major talking point around the Raiders’ offense since the second week of the season.
Chip Kelly is no long calling offensive plays, but his offense is still intact and apparently some of the “tells” that were prevalent under Kelly haven’t been weeded out.
Self-scouting is an important part of the game at the NFL level and the Raiders’ failure to self-scout their special teams group probably cost them a win against the Bears.
The Bears were kind enough to tell the Raiders what they did to block the potential game-winning kick in week 4… so maybe the Eagles will kindly do the same this week?
x: @raidersbeat
The Raiders would be better off running the single-wing, the wing-tee, and/or the wishbone. Draft the Army or Navy QBs. At least they would/could move away from the pressure. I’ve seen better high school girls flag football qbs than what the Raiders put on the field.
If we get the 1st pick of the Draft, I really think we need to trade it for multiple picks and fix this O line instead of drafting a QB like Mendoza. What sense does it make to draft him when his O line won’t be able to protect him?
I don’t understand how any reputable Head Coach, let alone Pete Carroll would have the
desire to coach this team.
We blamed Derrick Carr, Josh Jacobs, the offensive line, the defensive
backfield, Antonio Pierce, lack of receivers, Chip Kelley, there is something wrong with this
entire shop.
During the glory winning days of the Raider franchise, the NFL and the referees hated the
Raiders. They went out of their way to sabotage the Raiders. Now it looks the Raiders team
self sabotages itself. So it is, what it is!
I mean, he still averaged 2.8 YPA, and I don’t think predictability can explain all that. I generally hold Spytek last responsible for this debacle. He seems like the only one who recognized the team would be bad and ran the offseason as such.
Anyway, real bad trade, which is not something you should usually feel strongly about when the price was a Day 3 pick.
Then I remember he gave up a meaningful pick for Pickett, and I wonder…. Maybe it was at the urging of Pete or Tom, but why make that trade unless you feel you need a competent backup to keep things from falling apart for a few weeks, and you wouldn’t need that unless you were actually competitive. So why agree to it?