The Raiders Must Make THIS KEY ADJUSTMENT To *Beat The Chargers* Week 1!?

The Las Vegas Raiders are a couple days away from taking on the Los Angeles Chargers for week one of the NFL season. I believe they're going to beat the Chargers and I'm here to tell you how. Oh my goodness we are so close to Minshew taking the field to go up against Justin Herber and Jim Harbaugh. There's appropriate air around the facility in the building. Let's go. Week one Los Angeles Chargers. There's a lot of stories within the stories. Different things like Luke Getzey's first time calling plays for real. The offensive line isn't healthy enough. Is our defense for real? The quarterback situation blah blah blah. There are so many things to discuss when going into details of the Los Angeles Chargers versus the Las Vegas Raiders. I think it's going to be a decently close game. I think it may come down to one or two possessions. Herbert v. Minshew. But the real thing we need to discuss is this defense of the Las Vegas Raiders. We all believe in the secondary. We all believe in the front four. The one problem under Patrick Graham thus far, and we'll call it a problem, he hasn't been bad at this but he certainly hasn't been good at it either, is stopping the run. And we know with Jim Harbaugh coming back into the NFL with what he did with this offense getting rid of players like Keenan Allen that the Los Angeles Chargers are going to look to run the football down our throats. And the problem with a team like the Chargers or like you saw last night like the Ravens, if you can successfully run the football you can chew up many many minutes of these quarters. And the problem that the Ravens ran into against the Chiefs is that when you chew up a lot of these minutes running the football you better score touchdowns. So if Paul Gunther, best running coaches in the National Football League when he was in the National Football League and Jim Harbaugh, our red zone defense must be stout. We have to make sure that we limit the long drives from the Los Angeles Chargers and get the ball back because here's the thing, I don't yet believe or trust that our offense can just go score whenever we need them to go get a bucket, quote unquote. I think it's going to have to be Luke Goetze dialing certain plays up, Gardner Minshew getting into a rhythm early. If that gets out of whack fast we're going to have to rely on this defense to get the offense more chances to score the football. And where our offense, it's okay to settle for field goals because our defense could be our backbone of the team. Our defense cannot stay on the field too long and if our offense is not yet in a rhythm to keep the defense off the field we got to make sure we sure up that run defense. That's the first key takeaway I'm discussing here in this preview. The second thing I'd like to discuss and it was a narrative that I feel like not a lot of people are talking about although it was a thing before we hired AP as our next head coach. AP versus Jim Harbaugh. Jim Harbaugh was the one coach that we considered hiring instead of Antonio Pierce and I believe I've been saying this for weeks and weeks since the schedule came out. Antonio Pierce is well aware of this and the players who went out of their way to say trade me if Antonio Pierce isn't the guy are also well aware of this. So if you think there's not any sort of motivation or you think there's a lack of motivation going into this game for the Raiders side of things that's all you need to know to understand they are going to play their absolute tails off try to win this game for Antonio Pierce. Here's the thing I want to see from AP though. We know he's a master motivator. We could see that he got guys like Christian Wilkins to buy in. We could see that he's getting players like Jack Jones to play to their full potential. What I want to see from Antonio Pierce is the cerebral decision maker that you need to be to be a head coach in this National Football League. When are you going to go for it? When are you going to call these timeouts? When are you going to override and say I want to blitz right now or I want to take a deep shot? These are the things that Antonio Pierce his first year as an interim did not do particularly well. I think at the Dolphins game in particular there was a situation where he bled the clock out on offense for no reason to kick the field goal. I want to see how he's improved, how he's taken advice from Marvin Lewis, from Tom Coughlin, from Joe Philbin, from North Turner, from these guys that he's brought in that have won championships and playoff games and games in this league and have seen situations that he's not yet seen in his young career. I want to see how he implements them and takes his coaching prowess into the next level because not only is Mike Tomlin a master motivator but he knows how to make decisions on the fly and I need to see that from Antonio Pierce. And then I think the third thing which is probably the most obvious takeaway from this game and what we need to see really flourish is Luke Getzey. Not only the plays he's calling but how we are going to get the ball to the likes of Devontae, Jacoby, Trey, Brock, Michael, Lauby, Zamiroi, Amir Abdullah. That is a plethora of offensive weapons that not only deserve the ball but probably want the ball. How can Minshew and Getzey not only manage to get these guys open but manage to keep their egos and their wants to make plays for this team in check? You got to make sure you're not pulling the Jimmy Garoppolo and just force-feeding Devontae. You got to get him the ball early, him being Devontae. He's okay now. Now you distribute it. Now you take a shot to Trey. Now you hand the ball off to Brock. You throw loose green passes to Amir White. These are all things I want to see. Look, Luke Getzey's scheme, his system, it's going to be very Packers 2019-2020 Aaron Rodgers MVP season. A lot of quick slants, a lot of movement, a lot of 12 personnel, right? A lot of running the football. That's all well and good. I'm going to choose to believe that the scheme is going to work out. But what I really want to see is how we are able to keep all these offensive weapons happy. Because I'll tell you right now, if Minshew's not able to get anyone the ball, then nobody's happy and we have no chance. We're going to have to become the Pittsburgh Steers with Duck Hodges as the quarterback. Now I think Minshew's better than that. I do. Don't go crazy. Let's not get crazy. However, there is a situation where Minshew, because people have said, you know, he's never had these weapons before. Let's see how Minshew plays where he's the no doubt starter and he's got weapons. What if the moment's too big for him? That's a big what if we're not talking about. What if he feels the pressure of finally having anything a quarterback could want and he's not able to get it done? Do we then just go to Aiden? Do we let it play out a few games? These are all things to consider. AP versus Harbaugh. How are we going to stop the heavy, heavy run attack of Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins from Jim Harbaugh? And can Gardner-Minshew distribute the ball evenly to make everybody happy in the offense? And the last thing, but certainly not the least thing, my prediction for week one, Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers. I think it's going to be close for most of it. However, I do believe at the end of the game, the defense will wear down the Chargers just enough for them to make an untimely mistake, turn the ball over, whether that is on downs or via fumble slash interception. That time in the game, it'll be like, it'll be like 17-13. We get the ball. We score a touchdown to end this game. 24-13 final score. Raiders are 1-0. Here's what I want from you guys. Comment below your predictions on this game. How do you see it playing out? What's the final score? What are your keys? What are you most looking forward to seeing? What are you most afraid of? Join the Discord. Link is in the description below. It's free. It's a big group chat. We're all going to be talking during the game. Join the Patreon, patreon.com slash allboardraiders. Just for five measly dollars a month, you get your name at the end of the credits. You get exclusive content. You get ad-free content. You get videos like this days in advance. Please be sure to subscribe. It's free after all. No charge to you. I love you guys. I'll see you next time.