by David Zizmor

 

ALAMEDA–The Oakland Raiders next opponent the Kansas City Chiefs managed a win last Sunday to snap their three game losing streak and it was a pretty easy game agianst Washington, Kansas City won 45-10 on the road in Washington in freezing conditions. So the Chiefs probably feel like their back in the swings of things. In the Meadowlands meanwhile the Raiders had a rough game against the New York Jets last Sunday.

The Jets are not a very good team their offense has been struggling mightily for about four or five weeks and quarterback for the Jets Gino Smith has not thrown a touchdown pass since week seven and were sitting here at week 14. That tells you how bad that the Jets are doing and sure enough Smith goes out and has a pretty good day. It was kind of a rough game for the Raiders.

When the Raiders go on these east coast trips that time difference is tough and the Raiders did seem to get a little more involved in the game as the second half progressed and their body clocks caught up to the eastern time if you want to be competitive team you can’t go in against a team like the Jets and let them gain 352 yards. You can’t let them throw for over 200 yards and run for over 125.

If the Raiders want to be a competitive team you can’t let a team like the Jets do that to you, going into this week’s game against Kansas City there’s not much of a chance for the Raiders to win. The Raiders played the Chiefs pretty tough but the one thing I’ve noticed the last few weeks is the Raiders defense has been so surprising early on in the season it kind of faded as the season progressed.

Part of that is that teams have tape of them now and they know what their tendencies are and know what their weaknesses and strengths are so their able to take advantage of them. It might just be that these guys who were signed by the Raiders just because they were kind of cast off from a lot of other teams. Aside from Charles Woodson your talking about a lot of guys who had no experience as a starter.

Some of these players have had no experience in this league and it’s just an overall talent level that doesn’t match up with most other teams and while the Raiders might be surprised with their intensity early on that hasn’t been able to hold up. If your winning because of your intensity that’s great your able to do it early on but the problem with winning with intensity most teams can’t keep up that level of intensity over the course of 16 games it’s just not possible.

You have to have the talent to go along with it and once the intensity fades and the talent doesn’t kick in then your in trouble and that’s kind of where the Raiders are starting to head.

David Zizmor is covering the NFL for Sportstalk Radio