The Raiders Might Have Found Their Identity And It's Scary ( Browns Game Breakdown)

The life of a Raider fan is to win the games you're supposed to lose and lose the games you're supposed to win. And when the dust settles, we're 2-2, which is exactly what a lot of Raider fans had predicted. That's exactly what I had predicted. However, the games I had us winning were the Chargers and the Panthers, and the games I had us losing were the Browns and the Ravens. And here we are, 2-2. There's a lot to discuss. My name is Rodney. How the heck are you? You guys know how we start this. We start by commenting where we are watching from. We're going to do a poll very soon here talking about the MVP of the game. There's a lot to discuss. I mean, there was no Max and no Devontae to start this game. Obviously, you guys know the Raiders beat the Browns 20-16. The game ends on a 4-3 sack by Charles Snowden, the man who replaced Max Crosby this week. Guys had to step up without two of our superstars, even a guy like Marcus Epps who just tore his ACL. A guy like Michael Mayer, a second tight end. You need to see more out of Harrison Bryant. This was a big gut check game, and the Raiders are off the mat. If you go 1-3, your chances of making the playoffs are slim to none. If you go 2-2, especially now with two big-time ties or tiebreakers against AFC opponents. What is up? What is down is up, and what is up is down. I know, man. Look, we got to start commenting the way here. We're going to get all these comments in the chat flowing, and we're going to pull up the overview in a second here. But yeah, man, it was a wild game. And they were driving down the field at the end there, and I thought, here we go again. The defense needs to try to bail us out. The defense was absolutely lights out. We're going to get into Gardner. We're going to get into Lukic. We're going to get into everything, but I just need to know what's the vibe, what's the energy for Raider fans right now. Because there were times last year, games we played against the Packers or the Patriots last year where we won the games, but it didn't feel great. It felt like we won in spite of playing some really bad football. And yesterday, it didn't really feel like that. I felt like we played complimentary football for the most part. The score ended up being a little closer than maybe it should have been because the offense got a little stagnant at the end, and there was a fumble six. The defense didn't let up a score after the first quarter. The sixth that they scored, thank you for missing the extra point by the way, was on a fumble return. And that was Amir White. And I already see someone say Ben Samir, Trey Tucker needs more looks. All right, let's talk about it. We're going to do the first poll here. And again, comment away where you guys are watching. I want to see all the states and countries and everything. We're going to get into our first poll here. And the poll is the MVP of the game. And I think you guys are going to be interested with my four options here. We are going to pin the poll and we are going to send it out. And as I bring up the overview of the game, I want to discuss who I think the MVP of the game was. I think there's a lot to look at. And when we do these polls, the thing is, it's a team game. All of these people were collective in helping the Raiders win, right? But I do think people, you know, there's people that stood out more than here. So obviously, the final score is 20 to 16. We could not pass the football. And here's what I'll just say on Gardner real, real quick. I made my case that I think Aiden should be in the game. I think Aiden's a better quarterback. But here's the thing, if we keep winning, they're not going to make the change. So I'm not going to continue to talk about it. We're just going to discuss players on the field right now. I think Aiden would have made a couple of throws that Gardner missed, but he's on the field. So we're going to leave it alone. Gardner managed the game. He did okay. He didn't turn the ball over, and that was key. He missed a couple throws, but what really helped him out was the run game. Now, we rushed for, what is it here, 152 yards. We were averaging 52 a game before this game. This was an explosion, a breakout performance by the Raiders run game. And we're going to get into a little bit the Alexander Madison versus Amir White of it all. But who are we crediting with the run game improving? Is it the offensive line? Is it the running backs? Is it Luke Getzey? I just want to talk a little bit about Luke Getzey for a second, because again, there's this really passionate and strong narrative going around Raiders fans that Luke Getzey is not a good offensive coordinator. And I do think it's kind of a lazy and easy take to have when it's a coordinator who's coming from a team that didn't have great success offensively, even though he might not have had the players to do so. When you start struggling early on offensively, it's easy to just point fingers at the coordinator. What I think is happening when you just watch the film is that Getzey's calling great games. We're not executing. Whether that's Gardner missing throws, tight ends missing blocking assignments, running backs not seeing holes, it's definitely on Luke Getzey and the offensive coaching staff to coach them correctly. But when the chips are on the line and the plays are called, I do think he's calling good games. And I think this game in particular showed that he's willing to adapt if things aren't working the way that he thinks they're supposed to in weeks one to three. You saw it firsthand with the end around the Brock Bowers, the end around the DJ Turner. Those were ways to get the ball outside of the numbers. If our interior offensive line isn't yet showing that they can produce a strong running game inside the numbers and in between the tackles, we got to get the ball on the outside. And even if those end arounds aren't working, and a couple of them did, we scored touchdowns on them, he put Tyreek McAllister in the backfield, handed him the ball, a punt returner with some speed, and got him outside the numbers. So that right there shows you that he's willing to adapt to survive with a struggling running game. We got Alexander Madison more touches, we got Zamir White more touches, and the offensive line finally was able to execute a lot of the zone blocking schemes that Luke Getzey was implementing. And you saw the offensive game plan didn't change so much from week to week, from last week to this week, besides a couple more end arounds and getting more players involved than initially thought, like Tyreek McAllister. But when your players execute, the plays will work. And even the times where Gardner Minshew missed a couple passes, the receivers were wide open. I mean, we had that third and 16, the DJ Turner that he overthrew, that was going to be a touchdown. We had the Jacome Myers lay out one hit to catch that Minshew miss. There was a third and three check down Alexander Madison that Minshew threw a little bit behind him. Again, this isn't a dunked on Minshew video, I'm just saying. The point is, I do think the offensive play calls are working, we just need to execute. But right now, the defense is leading the poll. And I got to tell you, this defense is special. And we're going to get into the defense right now, because I've got some things to say. We're going to bring up the defensive MVP of the game, keep voting in that poll. I'm going to read some of the chat here. Getzey was good, or yes, Getzey, I just said yesterday was Getzey's first game play calling with us in my opinion, I agree. Powers Johnson is a reason we can run the ball period. I mean, we'll talk about JPJ in a second too. Actually, we'll probably talk about them right now for defense. One positive takeaway is the players that stepped up for 100 starters, our punter made the difference. AJ Cole is a weapon. He should be militarized. He should be militarized. Ooh, we got watching from Minnesota. Wow. Polamala Madison, Luke is not a good play caller, take him off the list. I don't agree. I mean, look, no one's voted for him. I understand that. The offensive line, we're going to talk about that real quick. JPJ and DJ Glaze. Wow. This is why, you know, Minshew was in the game the first four games to protect himself in case the line wasn't ready. And we were struggling to run the football. But now that we have these rookies and DJ Glaze, who did very well against Myles Garrett, he let up a couple moves. Look, Myles Garrett is maybe the best player in the National Football League, right? He's a top three player. He's going to get by you. But did you notice something by the end of this game? Myles Garrett was on Colton Miller's side of the line. I don't think he'd get by Glaze. And he said, you know what, forget this. I'm switching to Colton Miller's side. And JPJ is a bruiser. He's a mauler. Antonio Pierce said in his press conference that the refs had to warn him about JPJ because JPJ was pulling like the Michael Orr from the blind side and blocking them past the whistle being blown, which I absolutely love. This is looking like a very good draft class so far from Tom Telesco. He's already hit on guys like JPJ and Bowers. Glaze is coming along. And I mean, we could be absolutely rocking and rolling. The offensive line was great. But let's talk about this defense. And as I end this poll here, the defense is far and away winning this thing. We're going to unpin. We're going to close. Let's talk a little bit about this defense. They had to fill the void with Max Crosby being gone. And I've got some options for the defensive MVP. And I want people firing away in the chat talking about this, voting in the poll. Max Crosby did not play in this game. The broadcast said it was the first game he's ever missed in his career. Is that true? Because if so, that's wild. The kid is an absolute nightmare. But he didn't go this week. He has a high ankle sprain that's tough to play with. And people had to step up. And our defensive line was in question, right? No Koontz. Now, no Crosby. What are you going to do? And we were going to go up against a bad offensive line with Cleveland. It got worse during the game because there were some injuries. And we needed to see if we could take advantage with a couple of our backups going up against a couple of the backups of the Cleveland Browns. Can Patrick Graham, I almost just said Paul Gunther, can Patrick Graham out-coach Stefanski and the offensive line coach of the Cleveland Browns? And that first drive, I was like, wow, we're in trouble. They went right down the field. They took up like two-thirds of the quarter. We go three and out. They get the ball, they kick it, we're down 10 to nothing. They didn't score a point after the first quarter on offense. And I have something in my notes right here. Someone said this on the broadcast, I believe it was Jay Feeley. The Browns didn't convert a third down after the first drive. Think about that in your brain. After the first drive, the Browns did not convert another third down the rest of the football game. The defense is special. Last week was the perfect storm. They didn't know what the Panthers' offense was going to look like with Dalton. Everyone was saying, well, not everyone, a lot of people were saying, wow, this defense is Patrick Graham. What are you doing? And I wanted to give PG the benefit of the doubt because he deserves it because he's given the Raiders fan base a defense to finally root for. After all these years, right, with Derek Harbian on the team, the best defense he ever had was a 20th ranked defense. And at times we were the worst defense in the league. This defense is special. And right now I see votes going all over the place because this was a collective effort defensively. An unreal effort. Deshaun Watson, look, the pick that he threw wasn't his fault. Thank you, Amory Cooper. Once a Raider, always a Raider. However, you have to be in position to make those plays. The ball bounces right up in the air. Trayvon Merrick picks it off. There's a lot of people I could discuss going down the list. Let's talk about, let's just go down the list here. Dracorian Bennett, he's proven to be an absolute stud. You cannot throw the ball in his direction. It will be an incomplete pass or an interception. He was locking people up most of the game. And Jack Jones was benched for the first quarter. That was one of the business decisions that Antonio Pierce made. He wanted to send a message. And I thought AP also coached a hell of a game. This season could have got real sideways and there's a lot of season left to play. But say for the one Panthers game right now, we've shown to be at least consistent as heck defensively. And it starts with these guys. Dracorian Bennett's locked down. Snowden and Wilson. I'm surprised that they're only getting 17% of the vote. Not that I disagree with it, but I do think they were great. Snowden obviously had the sack to seal the game. He was in the back field a lot. But Tyree Wilson, guys, sneaky two weeks in a row has been really, really good. He doesn't really have the power to get by people, but when he times the snap correctly, his getoff is fast. And that was something in the preseason that we were a little bit afraid of. He looked slow. But as of right now, Tyree Wilson has shown me he's at least a valuable rotation piece in this league. I don't know if he's going to live up to that number one pick. What was he, the eighth pick overall? Something like that. I don't know if he's going to live up to that, but for right now, he looks pretty good. What are people saying in the chat? Pull him out. Got first star and got a sack. Pull him out. Easy MVP. Max doesn't miss a snap. He's crazy. Pull him out. I'm seeing pull him out. I'm seeing a lot of pull him out. Wilkins was everywhere. Yeah. I mean, let's just talk about it. Let's talk about pull him out for a second here. The nephew of Troy Polamalo, they said that on the broadcast. I don't know if every Raider fan knew that, but I didn't know that. He, look, they've been saying he's basically, you know, if Marcus Epps is the safety one, Trayvon Marigard is the safety two, Isaiah Polamalo is the safety two bait, right? He's right there. The only reason he's not getting on the field is because Epps and Marigard are so good. And, you know, unfortunate circumstances, Marcus Epps tears his ACL. And now we got to see what the kid can do. And he was flying around the field. This guy was absolutely all over the place the whole game. He was making correct, safe hits to get rid of the football out of receivers hands. He wasn't costing us any big plays. There weren't any penalties on his part. He looked like not only that he belonged, but he was one of the stars, captains and leaders of this defense. And when Epps went down, I'm not going to lie to you. I was, I thought this could, this could go really bad. Especially this is before Max Crosby was known to be out and Polamalo comes in. Yeah. Polamalo on Cooper on that third down before game ending sack. Yeah. Polamalo was all over the field. I see triple saying Snowden's absolute beast. I see Donuts Duncan. So to have had a moment, Wilson is finally getting his groove. Where is this right here? Okay. Yeah. I see right here from Pogden. I hope I said that right. Remember it was not till year three for mountain boots, maybe the same path for Terry Wilson. Absolutely. No doubt about it. Isaiah Polamalo is absolutely here to stay. I keep saying, absolutely. He's here to stay, but let's talk about who's leading this ball. The grouping that I believe one is this football game because yes, the secondary looked great. Tyrelson is Snowden. They were having their way. I believe they were having their way because of and Adam Butler. These guys in the middle, it was stunt after stunt after stunt. They took advantage of this weak, young Cleveland Browns offensive line. And Adam Butler in particular was a monster. Even on run plays where the running back for the Cleveland Browns got past our initial wave. Adam Butler was the one tracking him down. Christian Wilkins has lived up to the hype and to the contract that we've given him thus far. He needed to step up and elevate everybody else with the leader of the defense gone because if Max Crosby is the initial leader, Christian Wilkins is right underneath them. And Wilkins was a star and Adam Butler, as Triple said, is sneaky, a beast. I mean, this guy, our defense was contingent upon developing guys that were good last year and turning them into great players, bringing in some of the Christian Wilkins who can mentor a Tyrelson and an Adam Butler. And you've already seen the likes of Wilkins rubbing off on Adam Butler. You've seen people like Marcus Epps and Nate Hobbs rub off on Isaiah Polamau, Jack Jones, and Jacorian Bennett. This was what we envisioned the defense looking like. And again, save for the Panthers game, this defense has been top five in the league, no doubt about it. And I'm very excited to see what we can do against a reeling Denver Broncos offense. They are two and two, they're coming off a win. We haven't lost to the Denver Broncos in three years, four years, I don't know. I'm sure somebody will tell me in the chat. Our depth guy stepped up big time. Spillane is the second leader of the team, no doubt about it. He's up there for sure. Tyree and Wilkins hugging in the locker room, Wilkins is worth it just for the mentorship. Absolutely, dude. I mean, this team, win, lose, or draw, this team is a unit that stays together. And I think AP has a lot to do with that. Never worried with Epps out, we were stacked at safety. Huge, oh yeah, I read all that. Yeah. So look, the defense was great. We're going to end this defensive poll now. Is that everything I wanted to say in the defense? Yeah, basically. Let's talk about the offense a little bit. Devontae Adams wasn't there, and I saw a lot of people saying this might be a blessing in disguise to sort of open up the offense and get other people involved. And we thought Brock Bowers was going to have a big game, and I thought he was going to have a big game too. However, right before the game started, I had a hunch, and I pulled Juwan Jennings from my starting lineup, and I threw Trey Tucker in there. Now maybe that's just because I'm a Raider fan, and that was wishful thinking. We're going to pull up the box score here offensively. Trey Tucker is a problem. And the reason he's a problem is not because he's fast. Well, it is because he's fast. But the reason he's a legit threat to be like a great wide receiver in this league is because he is now a competent route runner who doesn't drop the ball. And when you could take the top off the defense, now the corners who are pressing you are going to take a couple steps back, right? And all of a sudden, you're on 10 yards down the field, you slam on the brakes, you run a comeback route, 10 yards all day. Trey Tucker was all over the field. D.J. Turner, we got McAllister involved. Jacoby Myers was the leader again. Harrison Bryant, two for 22, that was big time. Brock Bowers had a big run. He also had a drop, which is not great, and that obviously wasn't Gardner Mintry's fault. But as you can see here, the run game was paramount. Zemir White had 17 for 50. You know, that average is not great, but I thought he looked a little more explosive and ran with a little more intent than he usually did. That fumble is a problem. We cannot do that again, Zemir White, ever. I hated everything about that. Alexander Madison, five for 60, 12 yards to carry, and here's where I put our next poll. I have a feeling I know who's going to win it, but let's see. Who should be the Raiders' RB1 moving forward? I do believe it's time to at least give Alexander Madison the same amount of touches as Zemir White. If you're going to run inside the numbers, like power offense right up the gut ski, and maybe JPJ, like, um, I can't read, what does that say? Like Damon is saying, JPJ makes the run game. No doubt about it. Maybe Zemir White looks better moving forward with this offensive line that is now jelly. However, Alexander Madison is just the more explosive, more cerebral running back. If you want, third and two, bring the brawler in Zemir White. Third down running back, maybe. But yeah, as Donuts Duncan said, if we keep this run scheme, we got to go with Alexander Madison. I'm curious to see if any single person votes for Zemir White, and don't just vote for him because you're like, oh, he's got no votes, because I don't want to completely give up on him. He's not great, but the offensive line hasn't been great, and he almost had that big run for, like, 99 yards at the end of the game. He fumbled, and that was not great, or that was not the end of the game. That was right before half, maybe. He burst one loose, and you saw the speed that Zemir White had. Oh yeah, on that third nine, I mean, that was a handoff that worked. That was a gutsy play call. Brock Bauer's third down running back, I don't hate that either. But yeah, if we're just keen on the run game here, just for a quick second, I do think Alexander Madison is the guy moving forward. He's just, yeah, as Danny says, and I couldn't agree more, Madison looks like he just has more juice and a little more patience than Zemir White. It's the patience that's key. They seem to go power run as opposed to zone, and look, maybe they went power, and maybe that's why Zemir, you know, looked a little better. Oh, I see a couple votes for Zemir. Okay, ZJ92 says, why does Minshew get so much hate? He's a top three quarterback in the NFL as far as numbers go. I'm really curious. It ain't pretty, I get that. Okay, look, I think the reason why the Minshew thing comes up a lot is just because a lot of people do think that Aiden could be better, and obviously Minshew's stats are okay, but there are just plays to be left on the field, and with a team this good, being a quarterback away, you know, the quarterback is just going to be in line to get more scrutiny than maybe he should, and I'm a little to blame for that, which is why I'm going to try to piece back my Aiden talk, because at the end of the day, we're winning football games, and do I think Aiden is better? I do, but he's not the quarterback right now, so I'm not going to continue to discuss that. Madison, I like this right here. Madison should be at the minimum getting 60 to 40 percent of the snaps next week. He could see the field better. He runs north and south. Aiden, yeah, I mean, Aiden probably could have thrown 400 yards. I know that about it, and the passing game needs to be better, no doubt, but I think I'm going to end this poll because Alexander Madison is probably in line to be the RB1 moving forward, so that was basically the recap of the game. Let's kind of look forward to next week here, and I'm going to bring the schedule up, and I'm going to bring what I had predicted because, again, it's very interesting as we look ahead here the next few games, and I want to hear what you guys think our record is going to be in three weeks, so I'm going to pull up the schedule here. This is the first quarter. I have two Ws in for the Broncos, but if we look at the first quarter, you know, I had us four and two, or sorry, I had us two and two first four games. I just got the games completely wrong. I said W against the Chargers and the Panthers, loose to the Ravens and the Browns. These next three games are interesting. I don't know how many of them we're going to be favored in. Right now, we're technically not favored against Denver. We're one and a half point underdogs, but when you're at home, you get three points automatically from the bookie, so essentially, we are the one and a half point favorites. We'll call it a pickup. That is a game we should be able to win. The Denver defenses look very good, although I think it's been a little inflated going against teams that are not great offensively, save for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I don't think the Jets are as good offensively as people think. I think the Jets are going to struggle to score against a lot of teams this year, especially with that offensive line being the nightmare that it is for them. Aaron Rodgers might not last the whole season with them again, so in theory, again, we looked ahead to the Panthers game and was like, that's a W, W, W, and we lost. In theory, we should be able to win the Broncos game. Then you've got a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers coming off their first loss. By the way, any Steelers fans watching, you're welcome for just absolutely destroying the AFC North. You're welcome. The Steelers game is interesting. It's going to be home. I would assume if we win the Denver game, we could be potential favorites in this game. The Steelers fans are going to show up. It's probably going to be a 50-50 crowd. We have the better offense in Pittsburgh, no doubt about it. They might have the better defense. They probably definitely have the better defense. That's going to be an interesting matchup to see by then if our offense can gel enough to score enough points against T.J. Watt. And then you've got the Rams. I don't think they'll be healthy by then. They just lost to the Caleb Williams Chicago Bears. At the very least, we need to win two out of these next three games. If we go two and one in our next three, we are now five and two. Is that how that works? No, we're four and two, like the schedule says. And then we have the Kansas City Chiefs. And I'm not saying that I think we're going to win the division. I'm not saying that. I don't even know if we're going to make the playoffs. We're going to just try to take this one game at a time. But this Kansas City Chiefs game is interesting because to me, the Chiefs have looked not good this whole year. And I think every Kansas City Chiefs fan will tell you that. Mahomes has six touchdowns, five interceptions. Travis Kelsey is basically a non-factor. Rasheed Rice just blew out his knee because Patrick Mahomes took him out. They're running out of weapons fast. Isaiah Pacheco is done. Carson Steele keeps fumbling. I think that could be a game that could have some bigger implications than a lot of people are kind of giving a credit for right now. So, you know, again, we're not going to look ahead and say W-L-W-L because we do that here and we go completely insane when we lose to the Panthers. I do think there are games on the schedule that are winnable. And I think, you know, moving forward, if the offensive line can keep blocking the way it's blocking, I think that's the key here. If the offensive line could steady the course here, just get Alexander Maddison's Amir White going a little bit more, it's going to take the pressure off of the guard and everybody else. And then we get healthier. With this defense playing as well as it is, you get somebody like a Max Crosby back. Offensively, you get Devontae back. All of a sudden, by the time we play, you know, the Chiefs, we could potentially be four and two, maybe three and three. We'd be four and three or five and two, I think. Even if we're four and three, we play the Chiefs, healthiest we've ever been, best we've ever been playing. The young guys are playing. We have depth at every position now. We're the last team to beat the Chiefs, still. Aidan O'Connell was the quarterback. He didn't complete a pass after the first quarter. Two defensive scorers. We are the last team to beat the Kansas City Chiefs. There's a world in which they could be one and three or oh and four. They're four and oh, and they're at the top of the mountain. And right now, this team is built to be able to withstand what they're going to bring us in that game. We're not looking past Denver, because at the end of the day, we're two and two, they're two and two, and the Chargers are two and two. We're right there in the mix. The dust has settled, and we are right there in the mix. And the last thing I want to leave you with here is this. Do you guys think the Raiders have found a little bit of an identity? Smashmouth football defensive highlights. I do think it feels like we want to win game in between the numbers. And do you think we're starting to get that identity? And what is that identity? I want to see it in here before I leave, because right now I do think, again, if we can get that run game going, we're going to be tough to beat, especially with how great the defense has played. And four games into the season, you kind of know what you are. This defense is for real. Tony Romo said it after the first game. You're just not going to be able to go up and down the field on this defense. And Patrick Graham up in the booth showing a lot of emotion, emotion that I didn't ever think I would see out of a guy like Patrick Graham. Damon says we are finally showing some identity on the film. Let's see, let's see. Oh, I see Deadpitch saying no, we beat the Browns in AP set timeouts on fire. Don't fall for it. Okay, okay. Max is going to be playing against the Steelers. JPJ talking violence, taking it by it's a little too far, but I love it for him. I agree. Guys, the Raiders are two and two. Let's all take a collective deep breath here. Ready? One, two, three. We're two and two. It's a lot of this, and that's the life of a Raider fan, right? But you know, part of me wouldn't have it any other way. If we just won every game, it'd be kind of boring. This is kind of fun to just never know what you're going to get. Taking years off my life, not bad about it. But hey guys, thank you so much for watching. If you want to see more of this, I have a YouTube channel. It's in the bottom. What's this? My left, your right, right hand corner of the screen. Go to youtube.com, type in all aboard Raiders, hit that subscribe button. We're trying to get to 10,000 subscribers. I will be here next week recapping Raiders versus the Browns. Nope, Raiders at Broncos. Same time, 1 p.m. Eastern. I will talk to you guys. Love you. I'll see you next time. Peace.