Raiders vs. Cardinals Quick Notes

Alright, the Raiders open up their 2016 preseason campaign with a win on the road, beating the Arizona Cardinals 31-10.

Great way to start off with a win on the road against a team that's contending for a Super Bowl. Even though, the first stringers barely see action in the first preseason game, I liked what I saw from our 2nd and 3rd stringers.

The Good

I liked what I saw from George Atkinson III. GAIII rushed for 2 long ruching  TDs to help power a Raiders victory. He's continuing to put in the work and he deserves a shot at the roster after being stashed on the practice squad for the last two seasons.

DeAndre Washington was as good as advertised. He got a lot of reps when the 2nd string came on and showed off his speed and elusivness, freezing out a Cardinals defender after a catch and run out of the backfield.

Turnovers stood out. The Raiders should see more of this with a revamped secondary. Nate Allen and Neiko Thorpe made some nice INT grabs. Special teams had a turnover too to help set up the Mcgloin to Walford TD.

Special teams did a good job smothering the Cardinals and placing them in bad field position to start. Johnny Holton and Marvin Hall had a pair of good returns to set up some solid field position for the offense.

The Bad

The execution of the first string offense was not there. Aside from a pair of nice catches from Michael Crabtree, everything else didn't stand out. Kelechi Osemele got penalized. The interior O-line didn't do a good job opening up holes for Murray. AC/DC execution was way off. Coop should know by now he's not playing college ball no more. Drag that other foot inbounds!

Luckily, Mario Edwards Jr.'s injury is not related to the his neck, but rather his leg. I'm hearing it's a hamstring issue. Not too serious, but an MRI will tell all.

The penalties need to be cleaned up. Kicking team going off sides and offensive PIs were epidemic. Defense couldn't get off the field because of PIs or unnecessary roughness call.

Other Notes

Surprisingly, Karl Joseph saw some reps on first string defense tonight. I thought the Raiders were going to hold him out until his ACL was fully recovered. But, he got a glimpse of NFL action along with the revamped secondary of Reggie Nelson, David Amerson, and Sean Smith.

Conclusion

Greal win, but of course there is a lot of things that need to be corrected such as penalties and offensive execution. But, it's a confidence builder. They'll look to polish up some things next week against Green Bay. I'll be making an announcement soon in regards to how I'll cover the games differently (will also account for the NBA). I'll see you guys later.

TrueRaiderLaker Productions Entry #8: 2016 Oakland Raiders Hype Video - "Welcome to the Show"

Last year, my "New Generation" hype video was a smash hit. It got across a lot of Raider Nation forums, shared on chatsports, and even shared by some of you may know him outside the Raider Nation for his role as Donkeylips, Mikey Rayder  on raidercentral, a YouTube channel that provides a lot of Raider content and a lot of Raider talk 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. After that video, I followed up with a pair of highlights of the electric AC/DC tandem of Amari Cooper and Derek Carr and the "Untamable Beast," Khalil Mack. So, football season is around the corner and everyone might be wondering "am I going to make another Raiders hype video?" Here's your answer. I give you the true follow up of my "New Generation" hype video and entry #8 of the TrueRaiderLaker Productions: "Welcome to the Show!"

Description

To be honest about the process that went into editing this video, there was a lot of changes on my part to get the production of this video going. One thing to know about me is that I promote competition in the song choices of my videos. It was a three way battle between three songs: "Go Harder" by Future, "My Town" by Hollywood Undead, and "Ladies and Gentlemen" by Saliva. I originally started work with Future's song, but since I already used Rap in a previous highlight video, I wanted to go in a different direction and I was unhappy with the flow of the video in its development stage, so I scrapped the idea with Future's song. I wanted the hype video to go harder (no pun intended) with a much harder track, a track that "packs a punch." I channeled in my video game and WWE savviness and picked out two songs that I knew from the past:"My Town" by Hollywood Undead, used in the dream crossover fighting game, Street Fighter X Tekken and "Ladies and Gentlemen" by Saliva, used as the theme song for WrestleMania 23. After experimenting with the two songs, I was happy in how the hype video worked well with Saliva's "Ladies and Gentlemen" as it clicked better with the Raider clips I used in the production. Albeit, "Ladies and Gentlemen" is a decade old song and we live in an age where nobody listens to 2000's hard rock anymore, it's an underrated gem of the past and a song to get hyped up to.

There's plenty of optimism with the Raiders this upcoming season, even though we're pretty much accustomed to be cautiously optimistic because we've had out optimism die down for 13 years now. But, this is a young, talented team that Reggie McKenzie has assembled for the past 3 years, adding young cornerstones like Khalil Mack, Derek Carr, and Amari Cooper who've all made major strides last season. Under the watchful eye of Jack Del Rio, the Raiders made major, albeit unsatisfactory improvement going from 3-13 to 7-9. However, this offseason proved to be a turning point as Oakland transformed from being the least preferred destination to being an attraction for top-tier free agents as they added 4 top free agents on the market in Kelechi Osemele, Bruce Irvin, Sean Smith, and Reggie Nelson. In the draft, the Raiders emphasized on bolstering the defense, adding a hard hitting safety in Karl Joseph and versatile D-linemen, Jihad Ward and Shilique Calhoun. With these upgrades, it's amazing to see the transformation of this team from Reggie's first year to this year. We've had a lot of roster holes to begin with, limited draft picks, salary cap problems. Now, we have an established core and players that provide more talent and depth on both sides of the field. All of a sudden, the Raiders are the talk of the town. The media who once berated this team for their past dysfunctions are now kissing up and picking them to make the playoffs. The time for talk is over, it's time to hit the field and put in the work. Give us what we want. We want to see Raiders football in January! "Welcome to the show, please come inside ladies and gentlemen!" Enjoy the video.

Thumbnail

The official thumbnail of the video. Featuring: Michael Crabtree, Amari Cooper, Derek Carr, Latavius Murray, Rodney Hudson, Mario Edwards, Jr., Khalil Mack, Sean Smith (original jersey edit by @onlyonenation), Karl Joseph (original jersey edit by @onlyjerseyswaps), and Bruce Irvin. Thumbnail size is 1366 x 768.