The Oakland Raiders took a big step forward during the 2010 NFL regular season. They finished with an 8-8 record, and went 6-0 in their own division. Of course then Al Davis went all Al Davis and fired Head Coach Tom Cable for something, I am still not quite sure on that one. It looked like the Raiders were going to be relevant again, but of course the ruined a decent draft and ok regular season with more craziness. I really wonder what Al Davis will do next.
The offense was ok; they scored 410 points or 25.6 points per game on average. Jason Campbell saw the most action at QB, and he completed 59% of his passes for 2,387 yards with 13 TD’s and 8 INT’s. Those are not great numbers and they may suggest that this team needs a better answer at the QB spot. However since they gave up 47 sacks the problem may be on the offensive line. The Running game is great averaging over 155 yards per game so this seems to be a protection issue.
The defense gave up 371 points or 23.2 points per game on average. That was just 17th best of the 32 NFL teams and even though they went defensive is last year’s draft they still have some issues there. Their take away differential was -2, as they forced 15 fumbles and picked off 12 passes. They also racked up 44 sacks. So the problems may lie in the secondary as they gave up 207 passing yards and 133.6 rushing yards per game on average.
I have no idea where the Raiders will go from here. We can never tell what Al Davis will choose to do, or how he will decide to draft. What we do know is he seems to be the biggest problem for this team, and that needs to change.
Related Links:
- Oakland Raiders news and notes
- The Business of the NFL
- Joshua Lobdell.com