Raiders Week 7 Slay and Bomb

Week 7 Slay and Bomb

Well, that was unexpected, wasn’t it? This week 7 slay and bomb article is going to be unlike any of the others that I’ve written before.

That is because there were no slay performances. The entire team failed on Sunday. Offense, defense, special teams, and coaching all failed. The Bears walked into Soldier Field on Sunday and got their first win at home since 9/25/2022. Congratulations to the Bears, they are the only ones who showed up on Sunday. It was simply embarrassing to witness if you’re a Raiders fan.

The Las Vegas Raiders’ brief winning streak of 2 was snapped with vengeance and without mercy. What began as a comedy, where the Raiders and Bears were expected to start lowly-rated rookie backup quarterbacks, ended up looking more like a Greek tragedy.

The Raiders decided to start 37-year-old backup quarterback Brian Hoyer for some reason instead of rookie quarterback Aidan O’Connell and their offense looked the worst it has looked all season.

Against the 29th-ranked passing defense in the league, Brian Hoyer made the 2023 Chicago Bears look like the 1985 Chicago Bears. For one afternoon, the Bears became the famed “Monsters of the Midway.”

The Bears offense ran all over the Raiders defense with absolutely minimal resistance. The Bears started their usually inactive 3rd string running back D’onta Foreman. On Sunday, he became the 2nd Bears running back in team history with 2 rushing touchdowns in a single game against the Raiders, the other being Walter Payton.

In brutal honesty, nobody on the team seemed to want to be out there on Sunday. Players like Marcus Peters seemed to be making business decisions by stepping aside and missing tackles all afternoon long. D’onta Foreman resembled Earl Campbell with how many tackles he bounced off of in his 3-touchdown performance.

This season has flipped on the Raiders. It may continue to get worse. So far we’ve had Mark Davis yelling at critical fans to “smarten up” for criticizing head coach Josh McDaniels, Chandler Jones getting released after going crazy, and now more accusations continuing from last season that the Raiders don’t want to hear criticisms about Josh McDaniels after they were seen turning off the comment section for McDaniels’ press conference on Monday afternoon.

Let’s get into the devastating Week 7 slay and bomb performances.

Slay

None.

Bomb

Josh McDaniels

It’s time for everybody’s favorite bomb candidate to take his usual seat on this side of the aisle. I hope for one day to give McDaniels props for a slay performance. It just hadn’t happened in his 2-year tenure as Raiders head coach despite taking over a resilient team that made the playoffs the season before he got here.

The Raiders’ completely uninspired performance can be linked back to the coaching staff. McDaniels can insist that the team was prepared and ready to go on Sunday, but they certainly didn’t look like it. When a team gets dominated like that, it can usually be linked back to the coaching staff.

Starting geriatric quarterback Brian Hoyer was perhaps the most puzzling decision made in the entire NFL this week leading up to Sunday. Aidan O’Connell started against the Chargers and while he struggled, he also had them on the 1-yard line ready to tie the game at the end of the game before a bad play call and terrible pass led to them losing the game. If he was good enough to start against the Chargers, why not against the 1-5 Bears who currently own the first 2 picks in the NFL Draft thanks to their slow start, and Carolina’s?

We know who and what exactly Brian Hoyer is as a quarterback. He’s a 15-year journeyman who spent numerous tenures in New England. He also was entering Sunday 0-12 in his last 12 starts and was extremely underwhelming in the preseason against the Los Angeles Rams in his only appearance.

We know a lot less about “AOC.” He’s a rookie with raw potential and he looked good in the preseason. Yes, he struggled with a vengeful Khalil Mack in Los Angeles, but the Bears would likely have been a lesser challenge. The real question is, why not go with the rookie?

If you ask McDaniels, he said they started Hoyer because “it’s not the preseason.” However, the game against the Chargers was also a regular season game. This makes no sense at all. He also made several references to the joint practices the Raiders had during the preseason against the Rams as to why he started Hoyer against Chicago, but these practices were months ago. On top of that, Hoyer struggled in the actual preseason game against the Rams.

In-game decision-making once again came back to bite McDaniels. There were no second-half adjustments. The Raiders continued to try and do the same exact things and failed to execute them at all. The offense both this Sunday and for the entire duration of this season has resembled the 2006 “bed and breakfast” offense run by former offensive coordinator Tom Walsh and former head coach Art Shell that finished 32nd in the league.

Once again while attempting to come back in the 4th quarter, McDaniels opted for a red zone field goal while down 21-3. There’s no reason to go for a field goal in that situation. But once again this season, McDaniels decided to go for 3 instead of the obvious play to go for the endzone. What didn’t help was the pregame report that kicker Daniel Carlson was in the medical tent with an injury.

What really damns Josh McDaniels here are some stats not just from this game but the entire season.

All 3 quarterbacks have more interceptions than touchdowns. The team as a whole hasn’t reached 100 yards rushing in a single game. The offense hasn’t scored 20 points since week 17 of the 2022 season. McDaniels through 24 games has a lower win percentage (.375) with the Raiders than he did with the Denver Broncos from 09-10(.393). Something needs to change with the Raiders and you know where I stand on this matter.

Brian Hoyer

Certainly, that was a rough outing. Brian Hoyer is now 0-13 in his last 13 starts as a starting quarterback. I would say it’s time to hang up the cleats and ride off into retirement after a long 15-year career, but the Raiders signed Hoyer to a 2-year deal at nearly 3 million a season to be the backup quarterback. So, he will likely retire after his 17th year in the league.

Hoyer looked like the Brian Hoyer we all knew from his days at pretty much every stop in the league. On Sunday, he threw for 129 yards and 1 interception. He was immobile in the pocket, and his passes were wildly inaccurate. It didn’t matter what the route was, who he was throwing to, or what the coverage looked like. The passes were wobbly, had no zip on them, and went all over the place.

I thought in my preview article based on all accounts and reports that Aidan O’Connell would be the starter on Sunday. Sadly, this information was mistaken. Hoyer didn’t have much of anything to give on Sunday and it resulted in a 32-12 beat down where the Raiders only touchdown came in garbage time with O’Connell in the game. Jimmy G will be back at quarterback for the Raiders next game.

Defense

The entire defense gets a spot on the bomb list. The missed tackles were insane. Watching the Bears run the football for almost 200 yards, you almost got the sense that the Raiders’ defense was intimidated by the Bears’ offense.

Marcus Peters gets cited the most for missing tackles since he jumped out of the way of potential tackles all day long, but he wasn’t the only guilty party. Everybody did on that defense. The Bears ran it down the Raiders’ throat with ease all day long with a 3rd string running back doing the damage.

Rookie quarterback Tyson Bagent was making his first career start for the Bears. He didn’t do much, but he didn’t have to. 162 yards on 21 completions and 1 touchdown isn’t going to wow anybody. But he kept the ball in the hands of the offense and didn’t turn it over as the Bears played old-school Chicago Bears football and simply overpowered the Raiders for the win.

The defense was gashed for 323 yards of total offense. 173 yards came on the ground. It could’ve been a lot more if not for the Bears getting penalized 9 times.

The defense looked much improved the last few weeks, even being the reason why the Raiders won against Green Bay and New England. Against the banged-up 1-5 Bears, they looked like they would rather be anywhere else except Chicago. The Raiders defense will need to wake up and get back to form next week.

The Raiders’ next game will be in the primetime lights of Monday Night Football against the Detroit Lions, who mightily sit up at the top of the NFC North. It’ll be a tough game for the Raiders. They haven’t won in Detroit since 1990 during a famed showdown between Bo Jackson and Barry Sanders. Both teams got blown out on Sunday, with the Lions losing 38-6 in Baltimore to the Ravens.

The Raiders are getting back quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo for this game, so it’ll be interesting to see how much of a factor he will play against the Lions. It’s not a good sign that the Raiders just got dominated by the team at the bottom of the NFC North, and now they’ll have to play the team that’s on top of the division.