On Monday, Jon Gruden listed off several injured Raiders players he hopes to have back after the bye. We got a preview of just what this team is capable of accomplishing with a couple of other starters who returned last Sunday. With right tackle Trent Brown and wide receiver Henry Ruggs III in the lineup, the offense opened up and scored 40 points on the Chiefs in a big win at Arrowhead.
“I think we’re back. I think we’re back a little bit,” quarterback Derek Carr said Sunday after the win over the Chiefs.
“We knew we were going to come in big honestly. We talk about it all the time, but when we’re fully healthy the full offense is open. We can do everything we want to do. So, I’m really proud of our guys and the plays they made down the field, because that backs people up and then that allows us to let Josh and Book and Jalen and our backs eat and let our offensive line get downhill and run after people.
“All those things put together allows us to push the ball down the field and allows us to get the play-action game going, allows us to do a lot of things and it’s definitely exciting.”
Trent Brown gave Carr time to throw, which allowed him to let Ruggs and company get open deep. And thus we saw the kind of downfield attack we had not seen since Gruden took the job in 2018. The success of that attack could mean we see more of it over the final 11 games of the season.
Adding left guard Richie Incognito to the line and fellow standout rookie Bryan Edwards to the wide receiving corps should help solidify the unit even more.
As for the defense, having Nick Kwiatkoski back at middle linebacker made a difference in stopping the run and properly aligning the defense, which was crucial against the elite Chiefs offense. It allowed the Raiders to go after Patrick Mahomes and try to rattle him. Which appeared to have been somewhat successful. He also didn’t gouge the team on the ground.
After the bye, we could see rookie starter Damon Arnette back at cornerback and Maliek Collins and Maurice Hurst back on the defensive line. Though Nevin Lawson filled in admirably for Arnette as did the trio of Kendal Vickers, Chris Smith, and Datone Jones at 3-tech DT.
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