Oakland Raiders: Strong home-stand can keep playoff hopes alive
After picking up the victory against the Lions following a brutal road trip, the Oakland Raiders need to stay winning at home to keep playoff hopes alive.
In many ways, the Oakland Raiders have been one of the biggest surprises of the NFL in 2019.
After Jon Gruden was hired as the head coach of the Raiders, he and the front office received a lot of criticism for shipping off Khalil Mack to the Chicago Bears and Amari Cooper to the Dallas Cowboys for a boatload of draft picks.
It also didn’t help Gruden runs his team’s training camps in an old-school manner, such as showing clips of past Raider triumphs that none of the current players have heard of or as evident on Hard Knocks with the whole “knock on wood” routine.
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They then had to deal with the Antonio Brown ballyhoo, the loss of standout rookie safety Johnathan Abram for the season after one game — whose playing style would make Jack Tatum and George Atkinson smile — the Vontaze Burfict suspension and an absolutely brutal stretch of four straight road games and a “home” game in London.
Despite this, Derek Carr is having one of the quietest strong quarterback years in recent memory, rookie running back Josh Jacobs already looks like a world-beater, and the Raiders are 4-4, two games behind the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC West. Oakland is in the thick of the Wild Card race as the technical No. 8 seed in the AFC.
They’re also a half-game above the 4-5 Los Angeles Chargers in the division. On Thursday Night Football in Week 10, the Raiders will have to continue taking care of business at home against the Chargers, a team pretty much accustomed to playing every game as a road game.
From there, the Raiders schedule features nothing but very winnable AFC games, including a road game against the New York Jets. Their biggest test is a road trip to Arrowhead to play the Chiefs. As far as the home-stretch goes, after taming the Lions and Thursday night’s game with the Chargers, they host the Cincinnati Bengals, then the aforementioned road games.
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The Raiders will need all the momentum they can get over this stretch, though, which started with the Lions and continue with the Chargers. If Gruden can get his team to band together and go 3-0 in this much deserved home-stand, the Raiders will be sitting at 6-4 coming down to the wire with all remaining games being within the AFC. Their competition shouldn’t be the strongest either.
The playoffs are a real possibility in Oakland.