Winner: DC Paul Guenther
Paul Guenther doesn’t have many fans in Raider nation these days after giving up 30 plus points in five of their first six games. Gruden mentioned there would be changes during his press conferences this week, and we weren’t sure what those would be. After just six points allowed against the Browns, Guenther might be out of the dog house for now.
The Raiders were dominant upfront for most of the game, putting the Browns in third and long situations throughout the game. They created a turnover early in the first with Nick Kwiatkowski knocking the ball out. They continued to set the tone forcing the browns to finish the game with a 30% conversion rate on the day. This all led to the Raiders keeping an opponent under 10 points for the first since Derek Carr has been the quarterback of the Raiders.
Guenther will work for sure to stay on for the rest of the season, and we don’t know how much control he has left. Whatever changes they made during this week, it worked and should be the philosophy in the future. If the defense can put together performances like this more often matched with a top offense, the Raiders could be a playoff team.
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