Exactly How The Raiders SHOCK THE WORLD And Beat The Chargers

I'm going to make my initial prediction for this game in this video with the right to be able to change it tomorrow. I don't know if I'm going to do that with every single video or every single you know game coming up, but I'll tell you right now I don't think we're going to win this game or I'm not confident that we're going to win this game without one Broctimus Powers. Now if we pull up the injury report here, not looking great for the old LA Chargers. It's, you know, not looking great for us either in terms of DP and Brock both not participating in practice. Gente was a full participant, but there was a report I believe it was Jeremy Fowler, correct me if I'm wrong Jeremy if you're watching or any one of Jeremy's relatives, I believe he said Brock Bowers could have played week one if it was absolutely necessary. If it was like a win and get in playoff scenario. There's a world where he could have played which is interesting. I don't know if the success that we had on offense is going to let them sit him more cautiously in this game as well, but he still did not practice on Wednesday. Darian Poore did not practice with the foot injury. We'll talk about him in a second. A couple people of note who didn't practice for the Chargers, Troy Pipkins could be interesting. Ladd-McConkie did not participate. Khalil Mack-Reste did not participate. If they don't have Ladd-McConkie, their offense went from like nine yards per play to like four yards per play. Justin Herbert throwing hospital balls out there. But for the time being, it seems like Brock and DP are both up in the air. They're not going on injury reserve as of right now, so that's good. I do think that Brock is moving heaven and earth to try to get on this field, but we need both of them out there. I'm not just talking Brock, I'm talking DP as well because we're going to get into DP in a little bit. He was a lot better in week one than people think. I know we're playing the Dolphins, but you got to play who's in front of you and he was pretty special. Very interesting week one comes to an end with the Raiders pretty much dominating the Dolphins and the Chargers somehow losing to the Arizona Cardinals. I'm very curious to see what the market has us at right now on Cali. If we hop on over to Raiders Chargers, we're at 28 percent if you purchase the yes contract for us to win. You can see the little dip here because of how good we played and how bad the Chargers were. Look, I think we're probably going to lose this game, but my confidence in that prediction has wavered. Ash and Gente looked awesome along with our offensive line. The addition of Mike McDaniel to the Chargers at this point hasn't paid any sort of dividends at all, so I'm curious to see if I put $25 on the Chargers to not win this game. The payout is $88.07. The market's at an interesting place right now and if you are interested in checking out Cali, use code ALLABOARD to instantly get $25 when you trade $25. The interesting thing about Cali that makes it unique and better in my opinion than your traditional sports book is that you are not betting against the house like you are with those other sports books. It's peer-to-peer trading. You're purchasing yes or no contracts on specific outcomes across all sorts of different things. Politics, media, sports, you name it, Calci has it. So before we get into, you know, we got an article here talking about things that need to improve to win this game, I just want to get my take out there. I haven't read the article yet and I'm wondering if it's going to say the same thing as me, but I have a lot of rules or, yeah, rules I guess is the word, that I live by in terms of how do you expedite a rebuild, how do you upset a team that you shouldn't upset, how do you develop a quarterback, all these things. I have different pockets, different files that I go to and I go, this is how you do this, this is what the history says. And for this game in particular, we are 6.5 when underdogs. It was 7, it's now dropped to 6.5. Very interesting. If you are going to go into Los Angeles to play a team that on paper has, I guess, more talent at specific positions than we do, although now it's looking a little bit less like that. Vlad McConkie doesn't play and Herbert isn't playing up to his potential. In order to upset a team like that, you need to do this thing. You have to, you don't have to in theory, if they're really bad then it doesn't matter, but if you do this thing, you can win the game and that's the turnover battle. But it's not just the turnover battle, it's being perfect in your opportunities. You cannot have, God forbid, a nine play drive that ends in no points or a field goal. A field goal would be really tough, but no points is detrimental or damning to upsetting a team. That doesn't mean you shouldn't go for it and be aggressive. You just have to have your best play call at the right time. If you win the turnover battle and you score touchdowns on long scoring drives, that is the recipe for upsetting any team in the National Football League. Think about us beating the Chiefs on Christmas Day, the year that they won the Super Bowl against the Eagles. Aidan O'Connell didn't complete a pass after the first quarter. We consistently turned them over, got them off the field, and were opportunistic on fourth downs to be able to chew the clock. If we turn the ball over more than the Chargers in this game, we have zero chance. If we chew up a lot of clock and then kick a field goal at the four yard line, that's really going to hurt. We can do that against the Miami Dolphins, you cannot do that against this team. Now all of this is assuming that the Chargers are a good football team. If they're not a good football team, then you can do these things and you can still beat them. If we are better than people think, then you could do these things and still beat them. But assuming that we are still in the bottom third of the league as a football team, and assuming that they on their best day are a top third in the league on their best day, you cannot, these are non-negotiables, that's what I was looking for. You cannot lose a turnover battle, you cannot settle for field Cannot do it, cannot do it. The person that's going to have the spotlight on them for this is Kirk Cousins. Clint Kubiak has stressed, we want to get the ball down the field a little bit more, we got to take some shots, chuck it deep. Kirk Cousins has had a clean pocket against the Dolphins who have some decent players, Trapp Robinson, Jacob Rodriguez. You're going to face Khalil Mack in this Chargers pass rush, who looks a little bit less formidable now that Jesse Minter is gone. But they are still formidable nonetheless. Kirk Cousins is not, you know, fleet foot anymore. Do not panic, Kirk. If you have to take a sack, take a sack. You cannot turn the ball over. You have the best punter in the league who can flip the field wherever we are. I think making the mistakes against the Dolphins is really huge for us. It was almost like a pseudo preseason game where it's like, okay, we did that here, we cannot do that here. So that's kind of my take overall. By the way, while I'm going through this video, while I'm doing the initial prediction, while I'm doing keys to victory, put your comments down below. Predict what's going to happen in this game as I get into an article here from Ezekiel Argai on Sports Illustrated Raiders. Next steps Raiders offense must make heading into week two. The Las Vegas Raiders offense will have a much tougher matchup on Sunday against the Chargers. Considering how the past few seasons have gone, it is hard to many negatives for the Las Vegas Raiders week one win over the Dolphins. Yet even the Raiders would admit they still have plenty to work on. And several aspects of the win need improvement. The players and coaches have taken a sound approach to their matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers. Many have noted they have moved on from week one and are focused on Los Angeles. The Chargers have dominated the series recently as the Raiders struggled in the AFC West. However, like any other team, the Raiders have had been honest with themselves about what they needed to improve after beating Miami. Continuing to establish the ground game, this is how you control that clock. The Raiders have struggled mightily to run the ball in recent seasons. Sunday against the Dolphins, Las Vegas turned one of its biggest weaknesses into a strength. Las Vegas ran the ball for over 100 yards, kept the clock moving, and dominated time of possession. Las Vegas looks to continue going further with each game they play. With week one in their rearview mirror, a divisional opponent they know very well is set to give them an early season test. The good news is the Raiders win over the Dolphins was the exact blueprint for beating the Chargers. Attempt to stretch the defense vertical vertically. If the Raiders can stay productive on the ground, they can attack defenses downfield more than they did against the Dolphins. This is the next step for Las Vegas' offense, which appears to be able to attack defenses with short and intermediate pass concepts. As they play more complex defenses and defenses with more talent on them, they will have to attempt to throw the ball down the field more than they did in week one. They will obviously have to convert on those attempts as well. Kirk Cousins explained what it takes. We heard that in the press conference. There was a lot to like from Vegas under Clint Kubiak. Yeah, both Kubiak's staff and the players and how quickly things can change, we know that as well. That time could come as soon as Sunday against the Chargers team set on bringing the Raiders back down to earth after an impressive week one win. Yeah, I mean, look, it's a carbon copy of last year. I think we looked way better this year week one than we did last year, but it's a carbon copy. LA Chargers gonna be home game for us. It was a home game last year. Geno Smith three picks, game over, no chance. We cannot have that happen again. Kirk Cousins, here's the thing. I do think Clint Kubiak kept some of his deep shot cards close to the vest. And there were a few times in that Dolphins game where Malik Benson took the top off the field and they got him some early touches, Malik Benson. Punt returning, bubble screen. I think there was another check down maybe to Malik Benson that got Malik Benson confident early and then they're going to take that deep shot with him. I do see the same thing happening this week. I think this could be a week, whoops, I forgot to change this. This could be a week where Malik Benson pops in a major way. Jack Besh is out there to, you know, be a possession receiver on third down. Trey Tucker's there to kind of do anything he can to get open. Malik Benson I think is going to be the over-the-top threat of this team. And I think if you're going to pull out any tricks you have under your sleeve, Clint Kubiak, now is the time to do so. So Darion Porter seems to look for one week, I know, one week. Taking a little bit of a leap here. The highest graded NFL cornerbacks in coverage in week one per Pro Football Network's cornerback impact metric. Now I don't know much about this but it's a good list to be on because you see guys like Jalen Ramsey, Rick Woollin, Nate Wiggins, you know, James Pierre, Gonzo at the top and then right below him is DP. It's making me realize that I spelled his name wrong and I don't want to disrespect DP so I'm going to change that right now. There you go, it's now fixed. Again I don't know what this metric is but 85.5 percent with Gonzo at an 87.4 percent. This is something that I was talking about before the season. If we're going to exceed expectations you need to have guys pop that you did not expect. In training camp it was Tonka Hemingway. Tonka didn't have a great game against the Dolphins but our defense was so good that he didn't need to be amazing. He had a deflection, he had a couple pressures, a couple tackles and Quidi Paye and Max Crosby were really wreaking havoc and maybe that was because Tonka was taking a lot of the pressure off of them. In the season so far the people that have made an impact are all people that we expected to make the impact, the entirety of the offensive line. I think Spencer Burford maybe is someone that can be a bit of a surprise. I thought he was awesome in that game. You know, Joe DiCamillis, obviously Rick Dennison, the quarterback coach and the offensive line coach. We thought we were going to be upgrading massively on this coaching staff and that is the case. We thought Asher Gente was going to be awesome. We thought Trayton Stokes could be really good but Darion Porter was a bit of a question mark. We knew Stokes was going to start. We didn't know if DP was going to get benched for Dalton Johnson. It seems like they're on the field kind of at the same time with Dalton Johnson playing slot a lot of the time. We didn't know if it was going to be Zeke Masses. We didn't know if it was going to be Jermon McCoy and when DP came off the field it was Zeke Masses who took his spot and was also pretty decent as well. But DP was awesome in that game and if Darion can become an elite corner that belongs on that list, he was the main outlier on that list. If he belongs on that list, that is exactly how you surprise people because they go, okay we're not going to throw at Eric Stokes. We're going to throw at this other guy and then you throw at this other guy and then he picks you off. Malik Willis doesn't know much about Trayton Stokes and guess what? Trayton Stokes high point of that ball picked it off. That is exactly how you catch people by surprise and I think we're going to catch a lot of people by surprise this year if this defense is top 10 like we thought it had potential to be because last year was middle of the road and they didn't have the talent they have now. The linebacking core is the best linebacking core the Raiders have had in my entire life. Quay Walker is a massive body. N'Kobe Dean's closing speed is insane. I'm pretty excited about what I've seen from the defense. Okay so look, this is an initial prediction. I'm gonna lean forward here. It's an initial prediction and I've thought a lot about this. Am I drinking the Kool-Aid? Do I believe that the Chargers are as bad as they looked in week one? Do I believe we are as good as we looked in week one? I think it could be a little bit of both. I think week one is lying a little bit about the Chargers, lying a little bit about us, but the Raiders lose games like that, right? The Raiders lose to the Panthers with Andy Dalton starting. The Raiders lose to the Bears with Tyson Bajun starting. We didn't lose to the Dolphins with Malik Willis starting and Ashton Gente's running the rock and our offensive and defensive lines are pushing people down the field. We're six and a half points favorites. They're at home, which means it's really three and a half point favorites because the home team gets three points now. I don't know if that takes into account the fact that it's not going to be a home game for them. I don't know, but here's where I am right now with with Brock maybe up in there with DP up in here. I think this is going to be a low scoring war. I think there's going to be sacks on both sides of the ball. I think there's going to be multiple fourth down stops, turnovers by both teams. I think it's going to be an ugly low scoring game. I think the final score is 20, 20 to 13 chargers as of right now. That's what I have the game being 20 to 13 chargers. I think we're going to settle for a field goal or two that's going to really hurt us. Those, you know, you score a touchdown, you kick three field goals or you kick two field goals. That's how you get to 13. If you flip one of those into a touchdown, now it's 20-20 and you're in overtime and you don't know what's going to happen. I think we're going to make Justin Herbert really uncomfortable for a lot of this game. I think we're going to be able to control a lot of the clock, but when we get into the red zone, if we don't have Brock, it's hard for us to score because they're going to stack the box. They're going to play man defense on everybody and we don't have the wide receivers that can separate and Kirk Cousins can't scramble in. I would literally seriously consider bringing in Mendoza in for a red zone package and have him scramble in there or have him throw fades or read option or speed option with Gente. I would, I would heavily consider a red zone package for Mendoza, a baby zone package, 10 and in. Right now, I've got the chargers 20-13. This is the exact start I had us going on, a one-in-one start. This is, this is what I'm going to stick to, but I could be swayed come our video tomorrow and I could be swayed about what Andrew Junoko and Robbie Leonard have to say. Now look, before we get into the presser here, I do want to remind you that about 50% of the people that are watching this video are not yet subscribed to the channel. Now we just got a big influx because my last video has 30,000 views. I don't expect this video to have 30,000 views, but that would be nice if we can go back to back. So hit that subscribe button. It is free. Let's watch some of the presser. It's still morning? All right. The Dolphins were pretty set on they weren't going to let you get deep on them with some explosive plays. There were some calls where it could have happened, but their defense precluded it. How much do you like having a veteran quarterback that knows, okay, that's not a shot worth taking? Yeah, I think we say that all the time, you know, in our lingo, a shot call, it's not always a shot taken. You know, we want to take what the defense gives us. We're always trying, quarterbacks always trying to listen to his feet, go through his progression, you know, operate with intelligent aggression. And then when it's not there, get the ball and playmaker's hands underneath, let them break tackles and create explosives that way. How do you think Michael Mayer handled his expanded role in week one? Yeah, I think everybody, you know, everybody has an evolving role. If we have Brock playing wide receiver, Gente playing wide receiver, and then Mayer at tight end, I might flip that score from 20-13 chargers to 20-13 Raiders or 26-20 Raiders. But for right now, I'm just afraid to pick us without him playing. Each week, especially as we all get, you know, as we get into this, it's our first year, whether it's our first year together, you know, or we're together for a long time. Everybody's evolving week one, you know, whether it's Michael, whether it's different guys we asked to do different jobs. But I thought Mike did it, Mike did a nice job, you know, in what we asked him to do, took advantage of his opportunities, made some plays for us. And, you know, we look forward to the offense as a whole, you know, just keep evolving, keep creating plays. What is your takeaway in the way you guys are able to control the time of possession? I do think they're not blowing their whole proverbial load pause if necessary. On week one versus the Dolphins, I expect to see a lot more motion, Malik Benson, Trey Tucker, crazy stuff, especially with Brock back on the field, potentially, especially going to open and dropping the game. And do you feel like, you know, that's gonna be a blueprint of success going forward for the offense? Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things that we always talk about is being able to maximize our possessions, maximize the time that we have the ball in our hands. I thought our coaches did a great job, you know, with with the planning purposes, executing, playing, have our guys on, have our guys on point, letting our guys execute so that we were able to stay on the field. What kind of juices Mike Washington give your backfield now seeing him go out there and do what he didn't appreciate? Maybe you see a little more Mike Washington in this game too, because they were pretty stingy with him. They were feeding the hot hand, no doubt about it. But I like getting him some early touches. Mike is Mike is Mike's an explosive player, and we try to maximize his talents. He's a guy that, you know, when he gets the ball in his hand, you know, we like to, you know, he gets the ball, he gets the ball in his hand, we expect a lot out of him. You know, making sure that he's on his tracks, he's seeing what he's supposed to see. And then, you know, making sure he hits the hole and gets us to the second level and breaks tackles down the field. As a first year offensive coordinator, how much of a security blanket is it to be able to have Rick Dennison lead in your offensive line? Yeah, I mean, Rico is, you know, Rico's. Did you see that little chuckle when they brought him up? As a coordinator, how much of a security blanket is it to be able to have Rick Dennison lead in your offensive line? Yeah, I mean, Rico is, you know, Rico's. Rico's that guy. One of my closest friends. You know, he's that guy I look up to. He's somebody that that just always has an answer. You know, whether it's, you know, whether it's here in the building, or whether it's I take my golf cart, my son, I take my golf cart up to bother him on Friday night. But Rico is, Rico has been a tremendous mentor to me and continues to be a, you know, a great friend, a great colleague, but he's somebody that we love. Clint, you know, everybody that's around him, you know, he even has a 30 for 30 about him if you ever want to do that homework. Yeah, Brock's day-to-day, you know, coach handles the injury stuff. I can't really, I don't really want to dive into that, but, you know, we look forward to, you know, Brock progressing everything, but, you know, coach kind of handles all that stuff. I'm hoping they're being sneaky about him and that he's actually going to play. The production you got from Ashton and Mike on Sunday is how crucial is that in controlling tempo and just making sure you guys are staying on schedule as an offense? Yeah, I think those guys, you know, however, however it shakes out and every game's different, but however it shakes out, getting those guys rolling, you know, making sure that we get them in the best position to be successful and letting them, letting them take advantage of both their opportunities. Ashton had 100 yards rushing and two receiving touchdowns. How big of an asset is he in the passing game and I guess overall? Yeah, we want to maximize everything he does. We're trying to, you know, use him whether it's in the pass game, in the run game. He's a, you know, he's a player that has a lot of talent, so we try to, you know, we try to take advantage of him however we, however we see fit, whatever the defense gives us that week. We're talking about wanting to finish the game better. What have you guys worked on this week to work on that? I think it's just staying true to who we are, playing, you know, playing our, playing our, our style, you know, playing with a, playing with a shocking operation, everything that we talk about and just staying true to our. Her cousin says that a lot. Shocking operation. Snap one, snap 50, snap, you know, however many it takes in that game, but just staying true to our fundamentals and, you know, executing what's called. Watch the film of the Chargers from Sunday. There were some player mistakes on defense, but they weren't coaching. They weren't schematic mistakes for the coach and that talks about good coaching. How much do you relay that to your players? Just about we, what you saw last week's not what you're going to see this week. I mean, I think, you know, I think this defense is very talented. They've been together. A lot of those guys have been together for a long time. They're talented. They're a veteran led group. You know, the stats speak for themselves and what they've done in the past and what, you know, what do you expect them to do going forward? This is, this is a heck of a challenge for us. And, you know, we're excited to, we're excited for the challenge, but you know, there's a lot of talent on that defense that they they've been very successful for a long time. What did you like the most out of your offensive line in week one and how they really have to kind of step it up against a really talented defensive one in week two? I thought that, you know, our offensive line, they came off the ball with speed. I thought they tried to finish plays. I want to hear Robbie. After the game was that kind of going through the week, he, you got to a point where it was just kind of like, I'm going to let you guys do your thing. Just like, don't think about anything, play fast, play instinctual. What was the vibe that you believe you were trying to get to that defense going into the game? For me, it's always the vibe, I guess, maybe the former D line coach me. I know when, if you can read body language, when guys are unsure of a call or whatever it may be, or playing a different position. A big part of coaching that some people don't know, Josh McDaniels is the human element. And that's kind of the same mindset every week is eliminating those things. You know, you're trying to run your defense, but at the same time, you can only go at the pace at which players are comfortable to play fast. You know, so that's just something I'm always very sensitive to. After you watched the game film, was there anything that stood out to you that you didn't see from field level that you were really happy with that maybe you didn't realize was performed or going as well? After the game, you always, after you watch the film, overall, I was proud of our effort. There's, I challenged them on getting 11 hats in the picture, which I think is really hard. That is the standard. I think we had two clips. There's all 11 jerseys around the ball, you know, when it was tackled. That's what I was most proud of. Just what were your impressions on Quinny and the performance he had on Sunday? He played fast. He played physical. His style of play was right on par with what we're looking for. I was proud of him. You know, I was proud of him trusting me and the vision that we had bringing him here and sticking with it. And he went out and did his job. Your first win as a defensive play caller. I know it's a team thing, but just for you personally, what does that mean to get that under your belt? It was great. After one preseason game, people were calling for this guy's head. You guys are morons. The people who think the preseason matters at all are, go to hospital. It's humbling. You know what I mean? That's what I told the guys. I'm very, I feel humbled and blessed to, for them trusting me and very proud of the way that they, the effort and play style they played with. When Darian Porter went down, went in and immediately made a play as they targeted him right away. What did you like from his confidence and him being able to take advantage of that opportunity when it was given to him? That's how it should be. You practice like you, or you play like you practice, you know, and I was confident with him out there and he went and did his job. Do you anticipate if DP isn't good to go by Sunday, is he having more opportunities like that? I'm not sure. We'll, it'll, you know, to be honest with you, he's very competitive of how it'll be, but I'm sure he'll play at some point. I've seen enough. I really, really like this coaching staff. Yeah, in one week, one week, we'll see, but it's a low bar for them to have to crawl over and they've, they've crawled over so far. So now I turn it over to the people in the YouTube comments. What are the predictions for the game? What are your thoughts on my thoughts? What are your thoughts on your own thoughts? 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