Tag: Baltimore Ravens

Baltimore will be Oakland’s stiffest test of the season

Published on by jhawkes51Leave a comment

By Joe Hawkes-Beamon
Sports Radio Service Writer

AP file photo: Oakland Raider quarterback Derek Carr (4) during an audible against the Tennessee Titans Sun Sep 25th will throw against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday

OAKLAND, Calif — With all due respect to the Atlanta Falcons, who gave Oakland their only loss on the young season: you are still a suspect team with an inconsistent pass rush and a quarterback in Matt Ryan that is a great fantasy football league stat filler, not a championship quarterback.

Or the New Orleans Saints and the Tennessee Titans, whom Oakland has defeated this season.

Oakland faces their toughest test yet of the season, against Ravens team in Baltimore Sunday  in Week 4 in a game that could have a significant determine playoff seeding in the AFC.

Sunday’s game will showcase the NFL’s second-ranked offense in the Raiders, who are averaging 436 yards and 26.7 points per game (Atlanta leads the NFL, averaging 448 yards and 34.7 points per game), against Baltimore, who are just allowing 254.3 yards and 14.7 points game, second behind Seattle’s 250.3 yards and 12.3 points per game.

Raiders starting quarterback Derek Carr lit up a depleted Ravens’ defense in the two team’s match up last season in Oakland, throwing for a career-high 351 yards on 30-of-46 passes, three touchdowns and one interception in the Raiders’ 37-33 victory.

Carr’s 12-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Seth Roberts with 26 seconds left in the game capped off a 9-play, 80-yard drive after Carr went 7-of-9 on the final drive.

Last week, Carr completed 21-of-35 for 249 yards, one touchdown, and one interception leading the Raiders (2-1) to a 17-10 victory in Nashville, their second road win of the season.

For the season, Carr has thrown for 867 yards, five touchdowns, and one interception.

Oakland’s ground game racked up 123 yards, with starting running back Latavius Murray scoring his third rushing touchdown on the season.

Oakland’s 32nd ranked defense, who gave up 500 yards of total offense in back-to-back games to start the season, held Tennessee to 393 yards.

Rookie safety Karl Joseph, making his first career start, led the Raiders with 10 tackles (4 assisted), and cornerback Sean Smith recorded his first interception as a Raider.

The Ravens are coming off a tight, 19-17, road victory in Jacksonville Sunday, thanks to a Justin Tucker 54-yard field goal with 1:02 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Baltimore is off to it’s third 3-0 start in franchise history, their first since 2009.

Baltimore starting quarterback Joe Flacco is one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL entering his ninth season, already with six 3,000-yard passing seasons, a 10-5 playoff record, and a Super Bowl ring.

Even though Flacco has passed for 774 yards, he’s been uneven with the football, throwing three touchdowns and four interceptions, two against a young Jaguars’ defense last week.

However, Flacco was one pass away for tying an NFL record for consecutive completions in a game (22), but did break his own franchise record of 14 straight completions in a game, which he set in 2009.

Oakland should have their hands full with wide receiver Mike Wallace, who signed with Baltimore during the offseason.

Wallace, who is one of the more dangerous deep-ball receivers in the NFL, has caught all of Baltimore’s receiving touchdowns.

On the season, Wallace has 10 catches for 166 yards, while fellow wide receiver Steve Smith Sr. is second on the team (behind tight end Dennis Pitta’s 18 catches), with 16.

Smith Sr. registered 10 catches for 150 yards last year against Oakland and can go off in a heartbeat, if Oakland doesn’t loses track of him.

Baltimore’s defense were relentless in Week 3 against Jacksonville, holding the Jaguars to just 216 total yards. The Ravens held Jacksonville to just 2.3 yards per rush on 21 carries for 48 yards.

Outside linebacker Terrell Suggs, now in his 14th year with Baltimore, is tied for the team lead in sacks with defensive tackle Timmy Jernigan with three.

Jernigan should see plenty of former Ravens’ offensive lineman Kelechi Osemele, who returns to Baltimore for the first time after signing a five-year, $58.5 million deal with Oakland in the offseason. Osemele spent his first four seasons with the Ravens from 2012-15.

Oakland, having to make the near five-hour cross-country flight, looks to improve on a 1-16 record in their last 17 games in the Eastern time zone with a victory.

Kickoff is at 1:05 p.m. ET.

 

 

Raiders coming off bye could give tired Steelers a fight

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by David Zizmor

ALAMEDA–The Raiders have a chance against the Pittsburgh Steelers in their next game on Sunday there is really no games where the Raiders can sit back and claim it to be a sure thing to win it’s not like the 49ers playing Jacksonville where it’s a 99 percent chance the Niners will beat Jacksonville in London. The Raiders won’t have that this year their just not a good enough team.

On the other hand they are playing Pittsburgh and the Steelers have been struggling as well they are coming off a victory from the defending champions the Baltimore Ravens. So the Steelers definitely have a feather in their cap right now and their feeling good about themselves. The Steel curtain is having a lot of similar problems to the Raiders.

The Raiders are a team that’s going through a big rebuilding process, Pittsburgh kind of are on the other side of that they are a team that’s probably about to go through a big rebuilding process. They’re just aging at a number of positions and probably need to revamp this squad. On the other hand the Steelers have quarterback Ben Roethlisberger whose one of the better quarterbacks.

Roethlisberger has won a couple of Super Bowls you can trust him but their biggest problem is the Steelers offensive line has just been terrible. They don’t have much of a running game this season and it means their passing game is suffering because Roethlisberger simply didn’t have time to throw the ball. There’s just a lot of age on the Steelers defense.

If the Steelers have a lot of different problems the Raiders can’t take advantage of that the fact their coming off a bye week and had two weeks to prepare for this game should definitely helped them out as well for the fact the Steelers have to travel cross country for this one after playing a very physical game against Baltimore. Those Steelers-Ravens games are always tough and physical and they take a lot of energy out of you and you throw in a cross country trip for Pittsburgh their going to be in a tough spot.

It’s going to be tough for them to recover in that game against Baltimore, You wonder if their going to have the energy to really fight the rested Raiders team. Of course the Raiders have their own issues their still a very inexperienced team and as you watch them in that game against Kansas City you notice they have a lot of injuries especially along with their own offensive line.

Not all those problems have been rectified the players on the offensive line have not fully recovered from their injuries so it’s anybody’s guess as to how healthy they will be this coming Sunday and if that’s the case all bets are off.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk Radio