Saturday, September 4, 2010

Observations

With preseason finally over and unofficial cuts being listed by both Jerry and Vito, just want to jot down some observations. Actually, Raiders.com has the official cuts here.

One guy I was sorry not to see on the cut list is Jeremy Ware, a 7th round CB out of Michigan State. Like JLH his rookie season, this is the guy I'm picking on this year. Maybe they had to keep him with Walter McFadden - who looked rather good, by the way - injured. But he looked lost out there every play I saw.

On the plus side in the defensive backfield, I may be ordering a Tyvon Branch jersey by the end of the year. He looks outstanding. And the Al Davis "Pay him and the plays will come" approach may have worked with Stanford Routt, who looks a lot better and makes me less cynical about his grabbing the starting job from CJ based on pay level.

O Line - I'm worried about our tackles, who were destroyed vs. San Francisco. Only good thing I can say about that is that SF is my fantasy defense. It looks like Veldheer is officially a center, with Chris Morris being cut today and Khalif Barnes moving to LT in the Seattle game.

Run D - not quite as worried - yet - as the preseason might indicate. Seemed to me that most big runs were headed straight at Desmond Bryant while Seymour rested. Tommy Kelly remains wildly inconsistent, sometimes dominant, sometimes dominated. Will be interesting to see what they are doing with Trevor Scott, having played him at DE during the Seattle game. Maybe Groves or Howard gets more playing time at LB? With one transaction yet to be announced, maybe Howard is on the block.

WRs - the Raiders seem to have kept a lot of them, including Figurs, JLH, and Nick Miller. But with Schilens always hurt, this seems to be a quantity-not-quality situation to fill in for him. TJ Houshmandzadeh was released in Seattle, which would be a nice fit. It was good to hear DHB made a great catch in the final preseason game, so hopefully this carries over to the regular season.

And here's hoping McFadden breaks out this year. One comment by Jason Campbell convinced me to draft him in fantasy football. Paraphrasing, but Campbell said he was truly amazed at what a natural receiver he is. With so few options at WR, I can see DMC being used in a lot of ways in the passing game.

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