Chiefs vs. Raiders game preview: Joshua Jacobs is key for both teams
The Raiders are trending down on offense and up on defense
The Oakland Raiders are a West Coast team, in terms of their physical location, and thus get the coastal treatment in the national media. If you pay attention throughout the years, teams located on the coasts tend to consume the majority of national sports coverage and usually get the rosiest preseason predictions. It’s not shocking that the national media have fallen in love with the Raiders and in particular, Jon Gruden.
The Raiders aren’t a bad team, but they aren’t a good team. They’re very inconsistent, as they showed on Sunday against the New York Jets. That showing should give Chiefs fans who might have been concerned about the Raiders over the next few years some comfort. Against a bad team, with a historically bad coach, the Raiders didn’t just get beat. They got embarrassed. I’m assuming at this point it’s going to be tough for Jon Gruden to outwit Andy Reid on a regular basis, especially with the talent the Chiefs front office continues to amass.
That said, there are some important higher level trends to know going into Sunday’s contest. The first is that the Oakland Raiders offense has been struggling. That may come as a surprise to some, as most in the national media have raved about the Raiders offense the last few weeks.
Yet, over the last three games the Raiders have trended down from their season average in the following major categories: passing yards, going from 234 per game to 201; rushing yards, going from 123 to 86; and points scored, going from 20.7 to 15.3. While they’ve won two of those three games, it’s clear their offense has hit a wall.
While their offense has declined, their defense has picked up the slack. Over the last three games they have trended up in points per game and pass yards allowed per game, going from 25.8 to 22.7 and 268.5 to 180.5 respectively. The major caveat here is the Raiders rush defense, which has gotten gashed the last three games for an average of 135.7 yards per game. This is a major decline from their season average of 104.3 yards per game.
This team has improved him some areas from their first meeting with the Chiefs and declined in others. Unfortunately, unless they can figure out how to cover the Chiefs bevy of receivers it’s unlikely they have the firepower to even make this a close game.
Josh Jacobs is the current front runner for OROY
I wrote in the game preview piece for Oakland back in September that with the number of star running backs teams are finding in later rounds of the NFL Draft, the Raiders took a huge risk taking Josh Jacobs. If Jacobs didn’t turn into a perennial Pro Bowler, this would be a disastrous pick for the franchise.
It’s pretty clear now that Jacobs is the real deal. Through 11 games he’s fifth in the league in rushing with 957 yards and is tied or third in the league in yards per attempt for running backs with over 150 carries. He’s currently on pace for 1,392 yards rushing, 10 rushing touchdowns, and 212 receiving yards and is the odds on favorite at -200 to win the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award.
Jacobs has had four 100-yard rushing games this season, with nearly a fifth coming against the Chiefs in the two teams’ first meeting. He has been a huge key to their offense so far this season, with the Raiders winning all four games in which Jacobs ran the ball 23 times or more. The key to this game for the Chiefs defense will be containing Jacobs early.