Silver And Black Pride
It’s Week 3 and the Las Vegas Raiders are set to take on the Washington Commanders. Be sure to check out the gameday FEED discussion on Sunday, focusing on Ashton Jeanty’s touches. But first, let’s get to this week’s mailbag!
Q: Do you personally think Geno Smith’s last game against the Los Angeles Chargers was just one bad outing, or are the Raiders still heavily quarterback-deficient in the best division in the league?
A: Monday night highlighted a few of Smith’s deficiencies: forcing passes into coverage, predetermining throws and struggling to throw with anticipation. Obviously, that needs to get cleaned up and ironed out moving forward. However, I think it’s an overreaction to say that the Raiders are still quarterback-deficient.
I have confidence that Geno will learn from this and be better moving forward. He played well in Week 1, and I know emotions run high during the regular season, where people’s opinions can sway game-to-game. But let’s collectively take a deep breath and put the pitchforks down for a second. We’re not even in October yet, and Smith is working with new teammates, a lot of whom are still pretty young. He needs to be better, and he knows that, but he’s still capable of being a top 12 quarterback in the league.
A: According to Pro Football Focus, Jeanty has forced eight missed tackles on 30 carries as a rusher and two on three receptions. The former is tied for the fourth-most among running backs and the latter is tied for 12th. PFF also has an “elusive rating” metric, which is calculated with the following formula: (Missed Tackles Forced) / (Designed Run Attempts + Receptions) * (Yards After Contact Per Attempt * 100). Jeanty is currently at 80.0, 16th at the position (minimum 11 total touches).
Q: Do you think drafting a running back instead of an offensive tackle was putting the cart before the horse? Can an elite running back make up for a weak offensive line?
A: Leading up to the draft, the question marks on the offensive line were a big part of why I was hoping Las Vegas would go in a different direction with the sixth overall pick. So, I do agree with the “cart before the horse” sentiment. That being said, I’ll also acknowledge that Jeanty was the best running back in the draft class and Las Vegas definitely needed to improve at the position.
Elite running backs, which Jeanty could develop into, can help make an offensive line look better to a certain degree. However, they won’t be able to make up for a weak offensive line, which is the primary reason why the position has been devauled in recent years.
Saquon Barkley is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. He played behind a few bad offensive lines with the New York Giants and still managed to have three 1,000-yard seasons (and one 962-yard performance), but he took way too many hits that led to injuries and it was...
