by David Zizmor

ALAMEDA–We’ve been saying it for weeks now that the Oakland Raiders (0-8) despite their last four straight loses look a little more confident in themselves and that has a lot to do with the change in the coaching staff. Whatever former head coach Dennis Allen was doing it wasn’t sticking and whatever Allen was doing on game day wasn’t meshing with what they were doing during the week.

A lot of what we heard that was going on amongst the Raiders coaching staff during the Allen reign is that they would plan to do one thing during the week and then when things went south on game day they would completely switch up and move onto something that they haven’t prepared for. This is one of the reasons why they looked so bad.

What the Raiders are doing now is their putting together their game plans and their sticking to their game plans this is not a particularily difficult concept but you’d be surprised at how many coaches don’t do that. There’s a time and place for going off script but to do it consistantly when things go awry and that’s kind of a recipe for failure which the Raiders were doing.

The big problems that the Raiders have beyond the coaching staff is the talent level on the team. You really got to squeeze hard to get talent out of these guys because their just not that talented of a group. The free agents that the Raiders signed in the off season really haven’t been major contributors LaMarr Woodly and Justin Tuck two guys who have had a lot of past success under their belt.

Woodly and Tuck were expected to come in and provide leadership and contribute quite a bit on the field they just haven’t done that. That’s left a lot of playing time for younger guys who are inexperienced and that are not just as particularily talented. The Raiders are trying to find guys they could go forward with it’s not just next week or next season but for the future.

We keep saying Khalil Mack right linebacker he’s the most obvious pick and you might look at Sio Moore at linebacker but there’s not a ton of talent from this team that would start on other teams in the NFL. It’s just that simple. The Raiders have to face Denver this week, the Broncos are coming off a big loss to the New England Patriots in a nationally televised game.

That was one of the worst games that Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning has played as a Bronco during the regular season. The Raiders and the Broncos they don’t like each other and the Broncos are a very talented team and their not going to come into Oakland caring whether the Raiders have done anything last week and their coming into the Coliseum looking to put their stamp on this team and reassert themselves after the drubbing they took last week.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

photo credit: sjmercurynews.com