Oakland Raiders: Predicting Win-Loss Total For 2015

The NFL schedule for each team was released late Tuesday evening, and with it the analysis of how each game will play out will begin.

For the Oakland Raiders, it doesn’t appear that they will have much time to get in tune after the pre-eason ends. Oakland’s full season schedule can be found on their team site (Raiders.com). Let’s take a look right now at how their season could pan out in terms of wins and losses now that we know which teams they will face each week, and where their bye week will be.

It truly will be a tough start for the Raiders. They face two tough teams at home back-to-back in the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 1 and the Baltimore Ravens in Week 2. There have been many statistics used to predict success or failure in the NFL, but one that has long been shown to be true is the correlation between teams that go 2-0 or 0-2 in the first 2 weeks of the season and playoff appearances. Historically, most teams miss the playoffs if they lose both games and with the Raiders facing these 2014 playoff teams to start it is highly likely it will be an 0-2 start. After that they go on the road to Cleveland and Chicago and can bounce back quickly to finish the first quarter of the season 2-2.

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The Broncos come to town in Week 5, and after grabbing two road wins and some momentum it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Raiders win this game as home underdogs. That would put them at 3-2 going into the bye week, and for the first time in a long time fans would have a reason to be excited about the silver and black’s chances going into the second half of the season. Unfortunately, they then go on the road to San Diego where they struggle most years and head out to Pittsburgh in Week 9, with a home game against the Jets sandwiched in between in Week 8. A 1-2 mark is the most likely outcome, as I feel they’ve done enough in the offseason to beat a bad Jets team. That would give them a 4-4 record at the turn.

So a .500 record at the half in a season isn’t a bad place to be, especially when you look at the Raiders over the last decade at mid-season. The problem for Oakland is that schedule gets even tougher with road match-ups in Detroit, Kansas City and Denver and home games against the Packers and Chargers. Weeks 10 through 13 sees them splitting games at home against Minnesota and on the road against Detroit with a win and loss, followed by a win in week 12 against Tennessee on the road and a close loss at home against Kansas City in Oakland. That leaves them at 6-6, squarely in the hunt going into the last month or so of the season.

It’s hard to see more than one1 win in the last 4 weeks of the year, unfortunately. Unless Peyton Manning isn’t playing in Week 14 (a real possibility with his recent injury issues) the Raiders will most likely lose on the road in Denver. Then a home game in Week 15 against Green Bay looks like a 21-point defeat.

I will give the Raiders a home win on Christmas eve against the Chargers as a loss could likely mean elimination from playoff contention, but the final game against the Chiefs feels like a loss and a 7-9 finish. This would still be a big improvement over the last few seasons and something Jack Del Rio can build on, but will likely mean another year out of the postseason.

So that is my prediction for Oakland in 2015. Do you think it’s way off or pretty right on?

Next: Oakland Raiders: Evaluating The WR Corps

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