“He gave me a great ball there, and he did that the entire game”, Crabtree said of Carr. Opening the season with a win is always a great way to begin any sort of playoff campaign, but the Raiders opened the season with a hard road game against the New Orleans Saints.
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Carr passed for 319 yards on 38 attempts, good for a very healthy 8.4 YPA, a number which many used to criticize his otherwise-encouraging sophomore season in 2015. To see if I could make it from 61 yards, I got nothing to lose. That block is as attractive as it gets (Gif of it below for those that missed it), and him being able to switch over to Left Tackle in an emergency like he did in this game is absolutely priceless. They’d just scored a touchdown. It makes you wonder what the trainers were working on during the sidelines only to have him hurt himself further. Henry had 3 yards on five carries and caught two passes for 41 yards, including a 29-yarder, in Tennessee’s 25-16 loss to Minnesota.
Brees said, “Obviously a bunch of guys made big plays”.
Prater missed an extra point wide right with 4:04 left in the season opener, a miscue that almost cost the Lions.
NY beat Dallas in an opener for the first time in nine tries. As we’ve seen for years and years, notoriously risk-averse head coaches in the National Football League are reluctant to put the game on the line with one decision, and most would have opted to kick the extra point and try to win it in overtime. Payton said he fully understood Oakland coach Jack Del Rio’s decision to call a fade to Michael Crabtree for the win, since the Saints couldn’t stop much of anything.
Del Rio said that Smith, one of Oakland’s top free agent acquisitions this offseason after signing a four-year contract worth almost $40 million, will start again this week in the Raiders’ home opener against Atlanta. I know that might be really unfair, but really good defenses don’t give up over 150 yards rushing EVER, and don’t squander 14 point second half leads. We don’t want to get too excited here, as the Saints used a quick passing attack to help the offensive line, but still, they played better than many thought they would.
Trailing by 14 points in the second half and unable to slow Brees – who passed for 423 yards and four touchdowns – it did not seem as though the Raiders would be in a position to gamble, let alone show faith.
A day after the Raiders opened the season with a 35-34 victory over the New Orleans Saints, the national buzz is still about the team’s gutsy call to go for two points at the end of the game.
Who cares if the Raiders mathematically had better odds to win by taking the automatic Sebastian Janikowski extra point and going into overtime?
“We’re here to win”, Del Rio said after the game, via the San Francisco Chronicle’s Vic Tafur.
“In a game like this, conventional wisdom would point to the defense but I would say that we didn’t score enough offensively”, Payton said. “The ball moved on me”. The top play for the Raiders was a 75-yard touchdown sprint by Jalen Richard, which along with a two-point conversation connection of Carr to Amari Cooper tied up the game. Snead was on the receiving end of 9 catches for 172 yards and a touchdown. If the Oakland Raiders reach the playoffs this season, they will look back on this important win to begin the year.
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Snead finished with nine catches for 172 yards and New Orleans almost held on, but Saints linebacker Craig Robertson was flagged for interference on a four-down pass that sailed out of bounds. The inability to generate pressure with a four man rush is going to be the thorn in Dennis Allen’s side all year long.
