Kiffin still around; by the way, Chargers-Raiders on Sunday

By Os Davis  |   Tuesday, September 23, 2008  |  Comments( 72 )

Oakland Raiders
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So, Raider fans, how many times did you refresh your browser Monday waiting for a Lane Kiffin headline? As another day passes and another major media outlet dumbly reports “news” from an “unnamed source” that continues to “report” that Kiffin “will” be fired “imminently,” you've gotta start wondering about vast media-wing conspiracies at this point.

Kiffin or no, word has it that some Raider football will actually be played this Sunday; additionally, Oakland actually played a game last weekend as well, one that showed some remarkable progress over the season’s first two silver-and-black outings. What should we be looking for from Head Coach X, assuming said head is looking for a win when the San Diego Chargers come to town?

(This writer’s paranoid and sinister theory was that coordinator Rob Ryan totally blew the defensive calls in the final five minutes against Buffalo so that Kiffin would take the hit for an undeserved, gut-wrenching loss. Hey, it worked like a charm ...)

The keys to this weekend’s matchup as well for Mr. X, then, would appear to be:

• The pass defense. While the cerebral, clutch Trent Edwards is a different type of quarterback than gunslinging Jay Cutler and the Bills still successfully connected to the tune of almost 300 yards, the pressure was on throughout -- a welcome show of hustle and awareness from a heretofore lackadaisical unit. Edwards dominated in the fourth quarter, throwing for nearly 200 yards in the last stanza, but the Raiders can take solace in knowing they held the second-year man to a woeful performance in half No. 1; in fact, Edwards completed just 8 of 16 first-half throws for only 45 yards, and he was sacked three times.

As for the secondary, it played well the first three quarters. Nnamdi Asomugha was all over the field, turning in perhaps the game’s defensive highlight with the strip of Lee Evans near the end of the first half. (Nice heads-up recovery by Gibril Wilson there, too.) DeAngelo Hall was awake and alive for the first time as a Raider, notching an interception and getting in on one sack. Again, though, it's too bad for Oakland that Edwards and company broke the proverbial dam in the fourth quarter. Not having Wilson, who was ejected for foolishly punching Bills wide receiver Josh Reed in the fourth, didn't help toward the end.

• Darren McFadden and the rest. The heavy reliance on the running game will probably continue under Coach X, and why not? With the defense and special teams handling Buffalo for 45 minutes, the Raiders had such fantastic field position for much of the game that, until Johnnie Lee Higgins capped his career day with an 84-yard TD reception, Oakland didn’t manufacture a drive of more than 35 yards the entire game.

Kudos to Kiffin for cleverly not bringing incessant three-back formations, which everyone was expecting after the barrage of such against Kansas City. Best of luck with that strategy in your next game, wherever that may be.

For the San Diego game, McFadden will hopefully leave at home those bizarre invisible banana peels on which he skidded against Buffalo. One wonders what the final score might have been had McFadden, who was banged up, been effective in the least; he and the impressive Michael Bush should do damage against a Charger run ‘D’ that was torn apart by both Carolina and Denver.

• The kitchen sink. You've gotta love how the trick play, the gutsy fourth-down call and the odd formations have sprung up all over the NFL this year. Reckon we’ll see Kiffin (should he still be around, of course) break something out of the old USC playbook, either out of a sense of desperation, sheer what-the-hell mentality, or maybe even as icing on the cake in a surprise Raider blowout.

And after that, we’d all have two weeks’ worth of idle speculation to look forward to. Unless Al Davis has just been waiting for the bye week to dismiss poor Kiffin all along ...
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's...
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CommentsComments: 72  |  Sign Up  View all comments
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No.1
03:04 AM
09/23/2008
we will win on sunday brothers........ mark my words. man this team has alot of potential and so far we have only lost one game...
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No.2
04:18 AM
09/23/2008
Just read some very bad news. Gerald Warren has a torn pectoral muscle and will probably miss some significant time. OUR COACH...
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No.3
The Shape		05:35 AM
09/23/2008
I'm all for firing Rob Ryan. With Warren out we could be soft up the middle. Kelly better be on his toes because LT is coming to...
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