Monday night notes: What Raiders must do vs. Saints

By Os Davis  |   Tuesday, October 07, 2008  |  Comments( 16 )

Oakland Raiders
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With just six more days to go before the first fruits of the Tom Cable era are seen, surely many an Oakland Raider enthusiast was paying close attention to the Minnesota Vikings-New Orleans Saints matchup Monday night, as the silver and black anticipates hosting the latter this weekend.

Based on the Saints’ Monday night performance, the encouraging news for Raiders fans is what appeared to be a scary matchup a few weeks ago now appears to be possibly winnable game. RealFootball365’s game plan for Oakland? Glad you asked! The notes say the advice looks something like the following.

• Watch special teams. The opening kickoff run back 56 yards by Pierre Thomas was frightening enough even before Reggie Bush turned the game into his own personal track meet. However, the Saints had already toted an underrated return game, in fact entering the Monday night game tops in the league in yards per punt return. Though punt returning has been a slightly rare event for New Orleans in 2008, with 10 in five games (and just five such Saint opportunities going into the Vikings game), this will be an area of concern what with the way the Raiders are perpetually going three-and-out this season. Maybe this should be put even simpler, to wit. ..

• Don’t punt it to Bush at all.

• Defend the play-action. This one’s easier said than done, of course, as the Saints may sport the single deadliest tandem on this play with Drew Brees and Bush. Most emblematic of the combo (get to studying this part of the game tape, Cable!) was the call to go for it on fourth-and-1 with just under 5 minutes to play in the second quarter. Bush in the backfield should have made it obvious that the play-action was coming, with Reggie going to the strong side. Maybe it was obvious; no matter. Brees landed the ball in Bush’s hands and he was gone for 15 yards.

• Exploit penalties. In their first three games, the Saints were already being penalized more than five times per game. Game No. 4 saw the whistle blown on New Orleans a whopping 13 times; and on Monday night, the Saints’ double-figure penalties were certainly their undoing against Minnesota throughout in terms of establishing some kind of momentum. Hopefully the bye week will clean up a few problems within the fairly heavily penalized Raiders (30 calls in five games, tied for 14th best) a bit here, because Oakland’s got to win the battle for the referees.

• Force the turnovers. Going into “MNF,” New Orleans’ turnover differential was zero. Post-Vikings, that number is minus-4 and the loss made for the second thanks in more than part to costly turnovers. As much as you have to dig Bush’s playing style and versatility, he apparently still has some issues vis-a-vis holding on to the ball. And Brees does throw interceptions (at least one per game thus far into 2008). Is this a chance for DeAngelo Hall to truly redeem himself? Sure, if he remembers how to play underneath.

• Pretty much forget about running off tackle. Adrian Peterson didn’t gain more than 4 yards on a run to the perimeter until the fourth quarter against New Orleans. To be sure, the Saints will be attempting to shut down Darren McFadden in like fashion. Because Justin Fargas returns, why not just have the super-determined cannonball plow through the middle continuously against New Orleans?

• Sign Antoine Winfield really, really quickly. What’s that? He’s not available? Well, how about Dave Winfield? Paul Winfield, maybe ...?
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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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