Matt Flynn – Sports Radio Service

Chargers invade Oakland under the lights Sunday night

Published on October 4, 2013October 4, 2013 by jhawkes51Leave a comment

by Joe Hawkes-Beamon

OAKLAND — For the second time in three weeks, the Oakland Raiders will play under the lights, when they host their AFC West divisional foe, the San Diego Chargers, Sunday at O.co Coliseum at the special time of 8:35 p.m. PT, instead of the previously scheduled 1:25 p.m. PT, due to the MLB playoff game Saturday night between the Detroit Tigers and the Oakland Athletics.

Oakland (1-3), will have starting quarterback Terrelle Pryor back under center. Pryor sat out Oakland’s 24-14 home loss to the Washington Redskins after suffering a concussion against the Denver Broncos in Week 3.

Backup quarterback Matt Flynn, who was demoted to the third string quarterback behind rookie Matt McGloin this week by head coach Dennis Allen, started in place for the injured Pryor and didn’t look like the quarterback that Oakland sent two draft picks to the Seattle Seahawks this past offseason.

Flynn did finish 21-of-32 for 227 yards passing, one touchdown and one interception that was returned for a touchdown. Washington’s defense feasted on Flynn, sacking him seven times. Its no secret that Oakland’s offensive line has more holes than Swiss cheese, but there were times in the game that Flynn had guys wide open and decided to take the sack, even when the offensive line gave him time to throw.

The fact that Flynn’s starting backfield of running back Darren McFadden (hamstring) and full back Marcel Reece (knee), were knocked out the game made the task of leading Oakland to victory that much tougher. McFadden hasn’t practice this week and his status for Sunday remains in the air. Reece has been limited in practice this week, as well as starting center Stefan Wisniewski, who emerged from the Washington game with a knee strain.

Backup running back Rashad Jennings filled in admirably, finishing with 116 yards of total offense (45 rushing, 71 receiving), and rookie tight end Mychal Rivera scored his first touchdown, an 18-yard reception.

San Diego (2-2) is coming off a big win at home over the Dallas Cowboys, 30-21 and will pose a mighty challenge for Oakland.

Quarterback Philip Rivers has been playing lights out this season. Rivers has thrown for 1,199 yards, 11 touchdowns and just two interceptions. Rivers 11 touchdowns ranks second in the NFL behind Denver Broncos quarterback, Peyton Manning.

Against Dallas, Rivers was 35-of-42 for 401 yards passing, three touchdowns and one interception finishing with a 120.3 quarterback rating.

After nagging injuries have crippled his performance the last couple of years, perennial All-Pro tight end Antonio Gates appears to be healthier than ever this season. Gates continues to be Rivers’ most trusted target, racking up 25 catches for 364 yards receiving and two touchdowns in four games this season.

Gates finished with 10 catches for 136 yards, including the go-ahead 56-yard touchdown catch over the middle of the field against the Cowboys in San Diego last week.

Oakland ranks 17th in the NFL in defense and will have its hands full against San Diego’s eighth-ranked offense, who are averaging 27 points per game.

San Diego swept the season series against Oakland last year and hold a 57-47-2 edge all-time against the Silver and Black.

Players to Watch for San Diego:

No. 17) Philip Rivers (QB) — Rivers is enjoying a renaissance of a season under new head coach Mike McCoy. McCoy is an offensive mind and has given Rivers a renewed sense of confidence and Rivers is off to the best start of his career.
No. 39) Danny Woodhead (RB) — Woodhead isn’t a household name (or the Chargers starting running back), but is a proven chain mover and another trusted option for Rivers. Woodhead had five catches for 54 yards and two touchdowns against Dallas.
No. 85) Antonio Gates (TE) — With no legitimate No. 1 wide receiver, Gates is clearly Rivers’ first option on first, second, third and even fourth downs. Gates lost 25 pounds in the offseason and is faster and harder to bring down in the open field. Raiders’ defense has to make sure that they know where Gates is lined up at all times.

Players to Watch for Oakland:

No. 2) Terrelle Pryor (QB) — Pryor’s return to the line up gives Oakland’s 20th ranked offense an instant jolt. Pryor is completing 65% of his passes this season, and leads all quarterbacks with 198 rushing yards.
No. 17) Denarius Moore (WR) — Moore is Oakland’s leading wide receiver and gives Oakland the opportunity to stretch the field on San Diego. Moore has 15 catches for 233 yards and two touchdowns, Moore is averaging 15.5 yards per catch this season.
No. 99) Lamarr Houston (DE) — Houston is Oakland’s best pass rusher and it’s most active. Houston along with fellow defensive end Jason Hunter, leads the team with two sacks. Oakland will need to create a serious pass rush against Rivers and Co. Sunday.

Pryor struggles in Raiders loss

Published on August 31, 2013 by Sports Radio ServiceLeave a comment

By Jeremy Kahn

August 29, 2013

What a decision the brain trust of Mark Davis, Reggie McKenzie and Dennis Allen is dealing with, as the regular season is a week away.

That decision is who to start at quarterback for the Oakland Raiders against the Indianapolis Colts on September 8 at Lucas Oil Field.

In his final tuneup of the preseason, Terrelle Pryor struggled, as the Seattle Seahawks defeated the Raiders 22-6 at CenturyLink Field.

Pryor went 3-for-8 for just 31 yards passing, as the Raiders ended the preseason with a record of 1-3.

Matt Flynn, who is in competition for the starting job at quarterback did not even play in the preseason finale.

Rashad Jennings led the Raiders in rushing on the night, as he carried the ball six times for 53 yards.

Despite completing just three passes on the evening, Pryor did find Rod Streater for two separate 14 yard completions.

Justin Medlock accounted for all the scoring for the Raiders, as he kicked two field goals on the evening.

Tarvaris Jackson is making a great case to be the backup behind Russell Wilson for the Seahawks, as he went 12-for-17 for 119 yards

Lots of jobs open at Raiders camp

Published on August 8, 2013 by Sports Radio ServiceLeave a comment

By David Zizmor

August 3, 2013

NAPA–With the players trying out at the Raiders camp in Napa it is a full on 100 percent competition for pretty much every single position on the field and that’s including quarterback. Matt Flynn is the Raiders presumptive choice at QB unless Terrelle Pryor beats him out. Comparing them to the 49ers your going to see the starters from one to 82 series. With the Raiders your going to see the presumptive starters or at least a quarter maybe two because the Raiders really don’t know who is who it could be anybody.

So what you have to do is watch every single player on the field they’re all potential starters maybe you can say Darren McFadden is a sure thing but your not going to see a lot of him because they don’t want him getting hurt in the early pre season with that injury history. All across the field just look at every single position look at how well they perform and how much passion they play with. That’s probably the big part of the Raiders philosophy this year.

For the Raiders they just don’t want good players they want players who play hard that’s something they struggled with at times last year. So whether it’s the offense or the defense your just looking for guys to stand out. It’s not the same as the 49ers the 49ers have guys on their team who you know who are going to be the starters. Justin Smith is not all of a sudden going to be benched neither is Colon Kaepernick, or Frank Gore.

With the Raiders there is no such thing as a sure thing on this team anybody can get a starting position and anyone could lose a starting position which means pre season might be a little exciting because you don’t know whose going to emerge. So your going to have to watch at least the first half of these Raiders games to see how well they do. If someone starts to perform well in game one against the Cowboys in pre season and continues that into game two they could become your next starter.

At this stage it’s anybody’s guess as to who those players will be but for right now the Raiders are going to give everyone on that squad a chance to emerge as a contributor potentially a star and certainly as a starter and we’ll have to wait to see with the Raiders it’s going to go game to game as they approach it but it will be fun to watch.

On the quarterback front it’s the assumption that Matt Flynn will be Oakland’s starting quarterback I don’t think the Raiders went out to get him with the intent of benching him. He’s not a cheap player and he’s not super expensive either but he’s not cheap by Raiders standards anyways. So you have to assume that the Raiders wouldn’t have traded for him if they didn’t want to start him but remember the Seattle Seahawks traded for Lynn last year and he ended up getting benched as Russell Wilson started the season for the Seahawks and Flynn never saw very much time on the field.

The same thing could happen to him here we don’t know and that all depends on the quality of the backup and depends on how Terrelle Pryor plays and if Pryor comes in and starts lighting things up he could do the same thing. The difference is we’ve seen Pryor a little bit and it doesn’t seem like he has Wilson’s ability to command an offense it’s a huge difference. It’s not something they take lightly.

That’s why Pryor will not be the starter this season in Oakland but with Flynn we don’t know what his ability is over the course of a season if this is a guy whose only started a couple of games in injury situations and while he does well in those we haven’t seen him in the course of eight, or nine, ten games to really judge what he can really do over the course of time. So if he plays a couple of games and starts to falter and continues to falter then you might see Pryor get a chance at some point during the season.

Getting named the starter for game one this Friday against the Broncos is not going to insure that the Raiders starter will be the starter in game ten of the NFL season. It’s going to be a week to week proposition as it will be with most players on the Raiders, it’s going to be a performance issue. You have to keep performing to prove yourself from week to week in order to maintain your starting job. So that applies to the quarterback position, you don’t like that to be the case because you want your quarterback to be as rock solid as possible but that’s not the position the Raiders are in.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk Radio