Impressions so far:

David Carr still sucks. Raiders D still sucks. Jon Gruden still has like 295 years left on his contract. Have fun Raiders' fans!

(If I was them, I'd be offering Green Bay at least the same deal the Rams gave for Matt Stafford.)

 

Where was this Hollywood Brown last year when I had him on my fantasy team? :censored:

 

Bill Barnwell on Twitter: "The last five minutes of that game were like watching two people who have never seen football before play Madden"

 

I stayed up and watched it, mainly because of our pick-em thread and I was the only one who took the Raiders. It was a super-good game in the final stretch with several lead changes....and yes, it looked like two 8 year olds playing Madden.

In overtime, the Raiders march down the field with ease. They throw a TD pass, the crowd goes wild and everyone storms the field to shake hands. Meanwhile in the booth, they're like...he didn't make it to the endzone, he's a half yard short. So the game continues after a five minute delay since everyone has already left the sidelines shaking hands, etc. The Raiders try the qb sneak, get rejected, and then they jump off-sides on 2nd down. Oh boy. Third down, they throw a pick in the end-zone off a tipped ball.

So Baltimore takes over, drives about 10 yards and then Lamar Jackson gets LIT UP in the pocket and fumbles the football. Raiders recover around the 35 (give or take, can't remember exactly). And I'm thinking...kick the field goal on 1st down! Just kick it! But inexplicably, the Raiders run it on 1st down and lose two yards. So on 2nd down, they send in their kicker but they don't get the snap off in time...so they take a 5 yard penalty. And inexplicably, they pull the field goal unit off the field! I was like....you have to be kidding me! I've won my pick-em twice already and the Raiders are finding ways to blow this! My wife was laughing at me because I'm getting way too emotionally invested in a game I don't care about.

So 2nd and 14, the Raiders offense comes back out, lines up tight to the line of scrimmage in a run formation and Baltimore shows that they're basically rushing ten people. A skinny receiver runs a post route, smokes his coverage and Carr floats a pass towards the end zone for the receiver to run under. It was the easiest 40 yard TD pass you'll see this year...the CB stopped chasing the guy at around the 5. Raiders win!

Honestly, I didn't start watching until late in the 4th quarter, but it was the best game I've seen this year so far. Crazy ending!

 

So did the Ravens get worse or did the Raiders get much better? Or a little of both? Either way our game in Vegas looks like it's going to be a tough one for us.

 

The Ravens were clearly the better team, but the Raiders were playing super scrappy and generating a lot of pressure (to be fair, both teams were). Carr was keeping them alive in an otherwise struggling offense, so I'd say they improved some overall but not a lot better. Baltimore should have won the game.

 

YES! He was close to making a tackle almost every darn play!

 

The more and more Jackson runs the more and more chance of injuries and fumbles he has. Once his legs are gone he will be useless.

He's scared to throw the ball in big spots.

I can't see Baltimore giving him a big contract.

 

That contract is going to be huge.

 

If they really liked him as a franchise quarterback I feel like they would have extended him already.

 

That's how he fumbled in overtime last night- he was still in the pocket, but had already decided to scramble and take off. The ball was about a foot away from his body when he got hit and it came right out. It honestly didn't even look like the defender hit the ball....he fumbled from the big impact alone and not protecting the football.