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Have the Raiders turned it around?


patriotsheatyan

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23 minutes ago, PapaShogun said:
27 minutes ago, Nabbs4u said:

Good Teams Win close games, not the opposite. They're just not as bad as the masses wanted them to be. For whatever their reasoning?

Good teams also squash inferior competition, not play to it's level. Close wins can go either way, so I think squashing your opponent is more indicative of where you are at. Sooner rather than later, a team's luck is going to run out if they keep winning close.

I don't disagree with anything you just said but suggesting " we'll see what happens vs GB" isnt going to give us the answer either, even if they lose. Most teams lose in GB.

Now whether it's competitive,  a blow out sure we'll get indicators but the Raiders are clearly not the Dumpster Fire everyone was trying to make them out to be. That also doesn't mean I believe they are a Playoff team either.

Edited by Nabbs4u
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They have a decent amount of rookies and 2nd year players making an impact. Kolton Miller playing good at left tackle has been a huge bonus. If he pans out that will be huge because Trent Brown has the right side locked down, Raiders O-line could be an special unit. Carr is so up and down though. It will be interesting to see if they draft a QB in 2020 with one of those 1st rounders.

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10 minutes ago, Nabbs4u said:

I don't disagree with anything you just said but suggesting " we'll see what happens vs GB" isnt going to give us the answer either, even if they lose. Most teams lose in GB.

Now whether it's competitive,  a blow out sure but the Rauders are clearly not the Dumpster Fire everyone was trying to make them out to be. That also doesn't mean I believe they are a Playiff team either.

I agree and it seems so far...    Gruden and gang aren't the washed-up coaches that everyone thought as well.   From what I have seen they are a pretty well-coached team.  I think they are exceeding their expectations compared to what that roster supposedly is/was.  The consensus was that this is a below-average roster.

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12 minutes ago, sryan66611 said:

I agree and it seems so far...    Gruden and gang aren't the washed-up coaches that everyone thought as well.   From what I have seen they are a pretty well-coached team.  I think they are exceeding their expectations compared to what that roster supposedly is/was.  The consensus was that this is a below-average roster.

Exactly. We are where we are mostly with coaching. 

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21 minutes ago, Tex said:

We'll know based on their road games. They have @Chiefs, @Texans and @Packers -- Assuming they lose all 3, the answer then would be no.

Why do they have to beat 3 SB or Playoff at worst Contender in their own house to be considered as "turned around"? 

Are we asking if the Raiders are a Playoff Type Team or a Team clearly not picking top 5 overall this year? I'd say going 8-8 would be turning it around in my eyes, Anything more then that is gravy IMO.

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15 hours ago, sryan66611 said:

I agree and it seems so far...    Gruden and gang aren't the washed-up coaches that everyone thought as well.   From what I have seen they are a pretty well-coached team.  I think they are exceeding their expectations compared to what that roster supposedly is/was.  The consensus was that this is a below-average roster.

This is a key aspect of the Raiders season so far. Gruden has been ragged on in the media and by fans for the last year as if he can’t coach any more, when really it’s pretty far from the truth. In fact, his game-plans in all three of the wins have been very good, and he totally schooled Vic Fangio in Week 1. That’s not to say he’s the perfect HC - far from it. His ego has led to us making numerous bad personnel decisions and he has far more GM-level control than he probably should have, but I guess that comes with the nature of his hiring.

People wanted the Raiders to be worse than they are so they could continue the ‘Gruden is washed up & shouldn’t have come back’ narrative. And that includes a lot of the talking heads. I wouldn’t call them a good team yet, but they’re probably a 7 or 8 win squad, which is better than most expected. And with more high picks and lots of cap room heading to Vegas, I think things are back on track.

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Turned the corner? Yes. Given their personell and lack of experience in key areas, the fact that they're 3-2 with an adverse schedule and have been mostly competitive in the 2 losses (the 2nd Q against the Chiefs notwithstanding) speaks for itself. 

Now, how much of an ascension will there be? No clue yet. They still start out hot but can't seem to play a full 4 quarters. They do, however, seem to be slowly creeping in that direction.

To his credit, and I blasted our FO/Gruden early on for doing some dumb stuff, the fact that Gruden and co. have begun to shake up our worst unit (WR corps) despite the 3-2 start (and considering they could possibly be 4-1 without the aforementioned meltdown) shows me that the coaches at least think that there's a legitimate chance at being much better as soon as this season and aren't listening to negativity. Put simply, a 3-2 team who has played as well as the Raiders have overall typically don't start making roster shuffles like they have been unless they think they have a legitimate shot at going somewhere. 

Just my opinion. The GB game will probably tell us more. I expect a loss, but if they can keep it somewhat close and look decent doing it, then they're absolutely on the up and up. On offense in particular, we have a new RB, all new WRs, and new TEs. I expected the first few weeks to look much uglier on offense, given Gruden's system and how many new faces there are. So I've been impressed enough to give them the benefit of the doubt.

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On 10/12/2019 at 8:18 PM, Nabbs4u said:

Why do they have to beat 3 SB or Playoff at worst Contender in their own house to be considered as "turned around"? 

Are we asking if the Raiders are a Playoff Type Team or a Team clearly not picking top 5 overall this year? I'd say going 8-8 would be turning it around in my eyes, Anything more then that is gravy IMO.

I think if they can win one of those 3 (and depending on how they do it) that will answer some questions. The reason being as you mentioned, it would be an impressive win. The NFL this year more than others, especially in the AFC, is full of bad football teams. They may not even need to win to show how good they are but they do need to show they can compete in one of those games for me to say that they have in fact turned it around and that this isn't some faux. The Bears victory was impressive but I'm not going to read too much into that since there were a lot of factors in that game.

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They are still a couple pieces away from taking a big leap. WR and pass rusher, LB most notably.

They've found a nice identity with their Oline and Josh Jacobs who is looking every bit of becoming a star RB. 

They do have a fairly easy schedule to finish the year, so chance to build on their start. Then need to add one of the stud WRs coming out in the 2020 class and the best defensive player they can get.

And really... hats off to Gruden for navigating the AB situation that looked like it would implode their season initially. He has these guys bought in 

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