Oakland @ San Diego. The Raiders ‘short circuit’ the Chargers

The bottom-line? The Oakland Raiders made the #1 ranked pass and run defence in the league look very ordinary. And what’s more? They made their divisional rivals, the Chargers, look very ordinary at home. Touchdown passes to Jacoby Ford and almighty play fakes from Jason Campbell put this game to bed going into the half. We all know that San Diego have great second half statistics, but great defence from linebacker Kamerion Wimbley and a ‘stick to your guns’ mentality on offence made sure that the Raiders could hold on to their lead.

Defensively, the Raiders stood firm with Asomugha showing why he is one of the best corners in the league and their linebackers getting great penetration to make swarming into the backfield a regular occurrence, hence why Rivers never looked in rhythm.

Many have put this loss down to the weaknesses in the San Diego offensive line when going up against the likes of Wimbley and Richard Seymour, but special teams again hindered the San Diego Chargers with Sproles fumbling a punt return early in the game. We all know it takes a good offence to convert turnovers into touchdowns. The Raiders did just that.

With the Oakland offence rarely leaving the field, turnovers meant that Rivers was not allowed to find his rhythm, but rather he was left contemplating the last hit from one of those big Oakland defensive linemen for longer than he should have before returning to right his wrongs on the next possession.

Meanwhile, Jason Campbell seems to play best when Bruce Gradkowski is not looking over his shoulder and now that Gradkowski has been placed on the IR, I think that we can expect similar performances from the Raiders in the coming weeks.

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Picture this. It’s 4 th down and 1, close the goal line and the Oakland offence is staying on the field. Right after the Sproles fumble on special teams early in the game. This is of course a very risky play, given that they would give the ball right back to the already hurting Chargers without coming away with any points and at this point in the game I really didn’t like the call when Tom Cable kept Janikowski and the rest of the field goal unit on the sideline.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Little did I know that the Raiders would not only convert but Jason Campbell would go in for a touchdown on a huge play-action fake that had just about everyone in the stadium fooled.

Great play calling was not what made this a great play. Sure, it helped, but the Raiders intended to stamp their authority on the game early and they did it by converting a tough 4 th down, while the Chargers were low on confidence. The Raiders made a statement. A BIG Statement. Something along the lines of, ‘we’re better than you and we’re about to show it’.

Oakland are by no means out of the play-off hunt, although they do need to run the table to stand any realistic chance of playing in January.

Their next home game is against the Broncos, which should definitely be a win, despite those ponies playing tough in recent weeks and taking Kansas City close in their week 13 clash. This Oakland team play BIG against their divisional rivals but can they make it back to back wins next week when they are hosted by the ‘second-winded’ Jaguars where both teams desperately need the win.

I will hopefully be writing up a pre-game look at the Oakland/Jacksonville game in the next few days, so stay tuned! All the best from the UK!

Final Score: 28-13

By: Tom Greenhalgh
ProFootball-fans.com Oakland Raiders Correspondent