My Two Cents: Can the Oakland Raiders stop Jamaal Charles?
What up RaiderNation? Welcome to this week’s edition of My Two Cents, with your favorite geriatric Raider fan, Old Timer. This week’s column is about something that is on all of RaiderNation’s mind. Are the Raiders going to be able to stop Jamaal Charles from leading our hated rival the Chiefs, to a victory? First of all, let me just say that Jamaal Charles is an extremely talented running back with elite speed. And the Chiefs are very adept at the ZBS scheme they have been running for some time now. But the Chiefs’ running attack can, and has, been stopped before, or at least, taken out of the game.
The first step is the same for stopping any running back, maintaining gap assignment discipline. Incidentally, this is something that the Raiders have made huge strides in over the last 2 games, which is the reason they were able to shut down the running games of both Atlanta (45 yards rushing) and Jacksonville (54 yards).
But gap discipline alone is not going to stop Charles. There are going to be times when their line pops a hole open for him and he is going to get through. But Dennis Allen and Jason Tarver having been preaching, 11 helmets to the ball, and the Raiders have been buying in. If all 11 players give everything they’ve got, on every play, we will limit his yards. Charles is also fast enough to get the corner, and he will more than once in the game tomorrow. Once he turns that corner, it is going to take good angles by our secondary to keep him from taking it to the house.
But I think the most important thing we can do, is take take the running game out of the picture, and make Brady throw to beat us. How do we do that? By starting out fast, with touch downs instead of field goals, and by keeping the Chiefs off the field. What we can’t do is what we did with Jacksonville. Give up the ball on turnovers deep in our own territory and let them get easy scores. If the Raiders can be up by a couple of scores at the half, Kansas City will have to throw the ball to get back into the game. This is where pressure on Brady from the DLine, as well as blitzing linebackers and safeties come into play. If we can get enough pressure and sacks on Brady, the take-aways will present themselves and maybe the Raiders can put together a really impressive game in all phases, for the first time this season.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but 3-4 sounds a whole lot better than 1-4 did. Especially considering that if San Diego and Denver both lose, we will be in a 3-way tie for first place. But lets not count our chickens before they’re hatched as the old saying goes. Despite it’s 1-5 record, the Chiefs have a menacing defense that can keep them into games, and Charles is never more than a crease in the line away from taking it all of the way.
Well, that’s it for this week my Raider brothers and sisters. Make sure to check back next week for another edition of My Two Cents. Peace out RaiderNation!!
Old Timer
Questions? Comments? Email me at OldTimer@silverandblackdaily.com
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I can’t believe i got though this article awake, way to take a back seat approach to a topic that everyone already knows about, you might as well said that the raiders are from Oakland and the Chiefs are from Kansas City, boys have penis’ and girls have vagina’s… Yawn!!! how about addressing real issues followed by facts and ways to correct them, how about, gee.. I don’t know, things we care to read about. Can the Oakland Raiders stop(#1 running back in the league) Jamal Charles? like we don’t know who he is and what he is capable of, this is like talking about Michael Vick and his dog fighting, Of course we know he is one hell of an athlete, we know he will be the deciding factor in the game, we now the sky is blue, money is green and yes big bird is yellow, Tell us something we don’t know or is that to much for you.
You’re right, and I apologize. Perhaps it is best I take a sabbatical for reasons I will not explain at this time.