The Raiders showed signs of life in week 9 against the Jaguars, and for the first time in weeks they looked like a competitive football team again.
That was the good news.
The bad news is the Raiders lost the game, and Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter is still confused by how offensive coordinator Chip Kelly is utilizing Ashton Jeanty, who the team drafted with the sixth-overall pick in April.
Jeanty has shown the ability to be dynamic, but he is only averaging 15 carries per game, and on Sunday he only ran the ball 13 times in a game that was close on the scoreboard for five quarters.
“[I] want to talk about something about the game that just would perplex me if I was a Raider fan, and it was the first half, 21 passes and seven or eight carries for Ashton. And then you end up the game with 15 minutes more in time of possession for Jacksonville,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast.
“You can’t win at any level of football like that, and I’m going to talk to Pete [Carroll] about it later today. Just about how concerned is he? Obviously, the play calling and the team’s performance in the second half and overtime was significantly better, but the game is 0-0 and then tied at six and all of that. And you’re not running the football and the guy’s averaging close to seven yards a carry. It’s just illogical.”
The Raiders accomplished a season-high 26 first downs against the Jaguars on Sunday (who also had 26 first downs in the game), but Jacksonville ran 17 more plays in the game, largely because they controlled the game on the ground.
The Jaguars were credited with 42 runs on Sunday and drained the clock for more than 42 minutes on offense.
That’s a formula for winning in the NFL and on a day where Geno Smith finally played like a starting quarterback again, the Raiders’ coaching staff did him a disservice once again by not leaning on Jeanty more.
It will be interesting to see how Carroll responds to questions about Jeanty’s use because last week it sounded like he was more ready than ever to get back to running the ball.
“I have never been more sold on Pete Carroll wanting to run the ball than today,” ‘JT the Brick’ said on his Raider Nation Radio show on Tuesday.
“You want to take something out of this monologue and clip it? Clip this. I have never been more sold today on Pete Carroll’s philosophy of running the football. Everything going forward moves on that. They have got to establish the run to get Geno [Smith] going. He didn’t tell me that specifically, but I’m a talk show host, and I can tell you what my impressions of the interview that I conducted. I look him in the eye, he looks me in the eye. He wants to run the ball. Everything is predicated on getting this kid Ashton Jeanty going. If it does, it opens it up for Geno.”
x: @raidersbeat
Crickets! Again, Crickets!
When you have the worst offensive line in the league, and there is no normalcy to whether they’ll be able to pass block, run block or not block at all. Their game plan was to take him out of the game and make. Geno beat them. He couldn’t we didn’t and if it wasn’t for Bowers, we would’ve gotten blown out in that game.
Ridiculous. The offense put up 29 points. The defense gave up 30. The problem wasn’t the offense as we could have win if the D was able to get some stops. The problem was the D. Blaming Kelly for calling a good game with an imbecile for a QB and an O line that couldn’t stop a turtle is ridiculous.
Exactly Hondo is a moron. Yeah I’d love to have Klint Kubiak as HC but I’m not gonna scapegoat Chip Kelly when Pete & his kid gave him 💩 to work with…oh and Brady, how’s Darnold doing?
The Brady Bunch threw the season when they failed to shore up the weak OL during the offseason. Hard to get a good read on your skill position players when they play behind an OL like this one.
Exactly and then talking head idiots looking for clicks on social media blame Kelly lol. The QB is atrocious, the O line is atrocious. It starts and ends there.