Category: Raiders buzz

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It was not so long ago the Raiders were in the thick of the three-team battle for the Los Angeles market. It appeared at one time as if a shared stadium between the Raiders and Chargers in Carson had a fighting chance of getting that market over the Rams’ Inglewood project.

But, ultimately, with a big push from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, the Rams got the bid along with the Chargers, and the Raiders were left out.

A lot has happened since then. The stadium in Inglewood broke ground, and the Raiders turned their attention to Las Vegas. Since then, the two stadiums have been under construction simultaneously just under 300 miles away from each other.

Things seem to be moving along fairly smoothly for the Raiders’ Las Vegas stadium, with reports that they are at or near the initial budget, seat licenses are exceeding expectations, and the completion date is on schedule.  The same cannot be said for the Inglewood project.

An article from ESPN.com today detailed the turmoil involved in the Rams/Chargers shared SoFi stadium in Inglewood. Part of the issue is they are way over budget. The other major concern involves uncertainty about fan support.

The Rams’ owner is a shrewd real estate mogul who has found changing the Los Angeles sports landscape more challenging and expensive than he’d imagined. Both L.A. teams suffered losses the previous weekend. The Rams drew an announced crowd of 75,695 to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but it was half-empty at kickoff and contained so many San Francisco 49ers fans that the Rams’ offense was forced to use a silent snap count. The Chargers, on national television against the Pittsburgh Steelers at the 25,300-seat Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, 16 miles south of downtown L.A., felt as if they were playing on the road — again. Steelers fans either outnumbered Chargers fans or came close, as did Denver Broncos fans at the prior home game, as did Houston Texans fans at the home game before that, as did Indianapolis Colts fans in the season opener.

We’ve all seen the crowd at StubHub/Dignity Health Sports Park packed with opposing fans. Of course, we tend to notice that the crowd is dominated by Silver & Black. That was nearly the case in San Diego as well, with crowds regularly 50-50 Raiders-Chargers.

It was only going to get worse when the Chargers pissed off the San Diego fans by picking up and moving to LA, where they had little to no fan support. And the Rams were banking on there still being a large contingent of fans remaining from when they left for St Louis back in the mid-90s. That hasn’t materialized as they had hoped.

The red flags that are obvious now were visible then. League research indicated neither the Rams nor the Chargers had an overwhelming reservoir of support in the L.A. region, with fewer local fans than the Patriots, Steelers, Packers, Cowboys and even the Raiders, according to some team and league studies.

Yeah, the Raiders also left in the mid-90s to head back to Oakland. But the diehard fans in Southern California understood Oakland to be the Raiders’ original home, and being that it was an easy five-hour trip up or a quick, cheap plane flight, they could still catch a few home games, not to mention that annual trip to San Diego. So, the Raiders fans in LA remained fairly strong.

What’s more, a “fair amount” of the Raiders SSL buyers live in L.A. and will hop on I-15 on weekends, an executive with knowledge of the sales says. It has left a few owners and team officials worried and irritated that the Raiders have siphoned off part of an already wary L.A. fan base.

Now the Raiders are basically the same road trip away as they were before, so why wouldn’t those same fans just keep doing what they’ve always done? For many Raiders fans in LA, it would make no difference whether they were heading to Oakland or Las Vegas. For some, in East LA, Vegas is quite a bit closer.

The most surprising thing about all this is the seeming surprise of the owners. They had to know bringing a team to town wasn’t going to result in an instant shift in loyalty.

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If you are an Oakland Raiders fan, you know who Darren Waller is and has been this season. He’s the team’s leading receiver and has been arguably their most important offensive player.

However, the national media hasn’t quite caught on to just how dominant of a player Waller really is. Through 10 games, Waller has caught 56 passes for 666 yards and three touchdowns. He’s one of the best tight ends in the league after the catch, and he’s just starting to scratch the surface of his potential.

In a recent piece by Pro Football Focus, the site named the most underrated player on every roster. Not surprisingly, Waller was the selection for the Raiders. Take a look at what they had to say about the team’s new star tight end:

Darren Waller missed significant time in each of his first three seasons due to injuries and off-field issues, but he has since overcome those and is breaking out with Oakland in 2019. Generating the third-highest grade (86.1) for a tight end so far, Waller has been Derek Carr’s go-to guy, with 28 more targets than any other receiver in the offense. Most of these targets have been quick passes of 2.5 seconds or less — on those passes specifically, Waller is third in PFF grade (89.2), third in explosive plays generated (11) and third in yards per reception (11.8).

Waller is a big reason why the Raiders’ offense has succeeded this season and ready to make a run at the playoffs. Look for the former Georiga Tech receiver to get a ton of work over the team’s final six games.

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Usually, it takes rookies some time to acclimate to the pro game. The deeper into the draft, the more likely it is that you’re drafting a project. Either because you’re getting someone who didn’t have a lot of college production or had strong production against lesser competition.

For that reason, once you hit day three, you don’t have high early expectations. The first pick of day three for the Raiders at 106 overall was Maxx Crosby out of Eastern Michigan.

Crosby would fall into the category of strong production against lesser competition. He put up 35.5 sacks over the past two seasons playing in the Mid-American Conference. He had to put up monster numbers just to get noticed. He did get noticed and was on the NFL radar, but they were falling over themselves to take in on the first two days of the draft. But four picks into day three, the Raiders pulled the trigger. And they’re glad they did.

Crosby is coming off being named the AFC Defensive Player of the Week after putting up a franchise rookie record 4.0 sacks against the Bengals. But it didn’t merely take Crosby ten weeks to get things going. He was already leading the team with 25 pressures and was tied for the team lead with 7 QB hits.

I asked Crosby after his big game last Sunday if something clicked for him, and he said it was nothing like that. He said it was just his time to have that moment. That outside of some progress on the mental side of things, everything else has been there. His defensive coordinator can attest to that.

“We saw him early at Eastern Michigan,” said Paul Guenther. “[Assistant Defensive line coach] Travis Smith went up to Ypsilanti, saw him and he said ‘hey, he’s a good looking kid.’ You could see it on his college tape, and from the minute he got here on our practice field, it was evident we had a gem. He works his butt off, he’s always going 100 miles an hour, and you can’t ask for anything more than that.”

I can also attest to Crosby’s hustle. He never stops moving. In practice, when he was in one place, he was dancing or something, during drills he was at game speed, and even in running wind sprints, he was always the first one to cross the line. He simply knows one speed. And he clearly enjoys it. That’s rare.

“Some guys, you have to push for it, and some guys you don’t have to push to get that,” Guenther continued. “So, he’s one of those guys that you don’t have to push to get that which is always better.”

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The night of October 27, the Raiders plane touched down in Oakland, fresh off their fifth game in a row away from their home stadium. That return from seven weeks without a game in Oakland was the start of a three-game homestand.

Friday, they will have their final practice in preparation for the Jets, and they will warm up the jet to fly across the country for the first time in nearly a month.

The Raiders were enjoying their home cooking over the past few weeks. After a 2-3 stretch away from Oakland, including losing the last two in Green Bay and Houston, they have now won three-straight over the Lions, Chargers, and Bengals.

Their two wins away from Oakland came in Indianapolis and London over the Bears.

In London, they had the Raiders had the advantage in terms of bodily clocks as they headed to London a week early to acclimate to the time change while the Bears came two days prior.

In that regard, it was just their win over the Colts in which they overcame a disadvantage in time difference. Though, to be fair, the crowd in London was very much Bears fan dominated, so the atmosphere felt very much like a road game.

There is something that can be taken from having spent so long away from home, not to mention still managing to pull out a couple of wins many thought improbable. Most notably, the team bonding that happened as a result.

“These little road trips are nothing new,” said Derek Carr. “We’re flying all the way across to New York, and we’re like that’s half the flight from what we are used to, and it’ll be good for us. Actually, it’s so funny, talking to our guys, we have a good routine of little games we play together, little team bonding things that we do and some of the guys are like, ‘Man! We get to go on the road this week!’ because they are excited to bond some more and play some of our little games that we play. And that’s the makings of a group that gets along and loves being around each other, so you always want to play at home, but when you got to go on the road I think that we’ve had a lot of practice at it.”

Of course, this can’t just be a one-off road trip either. The Raiders will be on the road again next week in Kansas City.

Obviously, that first road trip was huge. And coming out of it sitting at 3-4 was considered a win. The fear when the schedule was released was that road stint could put the Raiders in a hole early on that was difficult to dig out of. Instead, they were a game away from .500 and have carried that over to reach 6-4.

This road trip would be just as crucial because they are currently sitting just outside the playoffs. A win in New York could put them into the mix for the playoffs. That’s to say nothing of how big a victory in Kansas City would be. But right now the focus should be on the first leg of the trip where they’ll have to take the field for a 10am Pacific start time in a hostile environment, against a suddenly resurgent Jets team.

The experiences of that 7-week, 5-game stint away from Oakland along with the 10-day trip to Indianapolis and London can only help prepare them for this trip.

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