ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) -The Oakland Raiders invested big bucks to bolster their leaky run defense during the offseason, giving hefty contracts to defensive tackle Tommy Kelly and run-support safety Gibril Wilson.
Despite all that spending, the Raiders have been even worse than they were a year ago against the run and are in danger of posting the worst mark in franchise history.
Oakland has allowed 167.1 yards per game rushing this season, just 4.1 yards per game shy of beating the 1962 team for the worst ever for the Raiders.
“You got to have pride in stopping the run,” interim coach Tom Cable said Wednesday. “It is a tough guy’s game and that’s where you have to do it. You got to make sure you fit it up right in terms of your scheme and teach it right and all those things. It’s just collectively doing it the right way and getting back to playing at the right level of intensity.”
or or other defensive changes.
For many of the players that is both frustrating and inexcusable to be still going on this late in the season.
“That’s one of those little things. It don’t cost you to talk,” defensive end Derrick Burgess said. “But it just happens in games when you’re trying to focus on your technique but you need to be giving this guy a call and you don’t give him the call or you give him the wrong call. It’s just one of those things where more time in the meeting room, more time together will smooth that all out.”
With only two games remaining this season, there’s not much time to iron out these problems. If Oakland (3-11) allows 400 yards rushing over the final two games, this will be the worst run defense season in franchise history.
The Raiders have allowed nearly that many over the last nine games, when opponents have averaged 196.1 yards per game with a 5.1 yard average.
The Raiders were gashed for 277 yards in last week’s 49-26 loss to New England and have not held an opponent under 100 yards rushing since a 23-8 win in Week 2 over Kansas City.
The leaky run defense has played a big role in Oakland becoming the first team to lose at least 11 games for six straight seasons and was not what the team expected after its offseason moves.
wns and the second most yards per game at 139.5.
Oakland has an 18-60 record in that span, going through four head coaches, four offensive coordinators, six offensive play-callers and one defensive coordinator.
“It’s very frustrating,” Burgess said. “I’ve been here four years. It’s the same defense. We’ve been running the same defense for four years. To still have these same kinds of problems is hard to explain.”
Kelly was supposed to be the anchor of the run defense at tackle after signing a seven-year contract in the offseason that was worth up to $50.5 million and included $18.125 million in guaranteed money. Yet his play in the middle alongside Terdell Sands, who got a $17 million, four-year contract the previous offseason, and Gerard Warren has not been up to par in recent weeks.
Cable called their recent play “unacceptable” earlier this week, saying the defense needed to be stronger up the middle.
“We think too damned much,” Sands said. “That’s all we need to do, get on the same page, get the checks together right, and we will be all right. This defense is very talented. I hate to see the season end up like it is, with as much talent as we do have. It’s the same guys that have been fighting with each other for almost four years now, so it really does hurt at the same time.”
ilson led all safeties in solo tackles over his first four seasons in the NFL but has not helped the Raiders solve their run woes this year.
Notes: WRs Ashley Lelie (calf) and Ronald Curry (toe) will likely miss the game this week, leaving Johnnie Lee Higgins and Chaz Schilens as the starting receivers. … OL Robert Gallery said he talked to former offensive line assistant James Cregg, who quit the team this week to take a job as an assistant for former Raiders head coach Lane Kiffin at Tennessee. “I see both sides of it,” Gallery said. “He’s got to look out for his family. I think if I got put in that situation I don’t know what I would do.”
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