Oakland Raiders Week Eight: Pressures, Hurries, and Knockdowns

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Well, our schizophrenic Raiders showed their "OH" faces again last weekend, getting bent over and taken to task by the New York Jets.

We travel to rival San Diego this weekend looking to end a 12-game losing skid against the hated dolts, er, Bolts.

This team needs to find an identity and fast. They need to decide whether they are the team that shows up and physically beats opponents up, or the team that becomes a willing participant in their own destruction.

The pressure is on as always for this team and we have what seems to be a recurring themes here.

Pressures

JaMarcus Russell

Russell has played poorly enough at times this season to warrant a benching, but it never came and looks like it never would.

Until last weekend.

Having turned the ball over twice, leading to two Jet touchdown drives for a combined eight yards, Russell was leading the team on a solid drive and looking as if he may get them back in the game.

Then, he threw another pick; this time in the end zone. Granted, Darrelle Revis is a stellar cornerback who made a spectacular play and Todd Watkins didn't fight for the ball whatsoever, but Russell simply threw the ball up for and hoped.

After that, he was benched in favor of Bruce Gradkowski. Others will argue with me, but I didn't see that Gradkowski played any better. Did he give the offense some life? Yes, but so did Josh McCown when he replaced Daunte Culpepper.

New life will bring immediate excitement; but Gradkowski turned the ball over as well, and easily could've thrown three to four interceptions if Jets defenders didn't suddenly become Darrius Heyward-Bey (cheap shot, I know).

Russell could've responded to the situation in a mature manner, stating that he knows he needs to get better and that the benching would serve as motivation.

Instead, he deflected blame and threw his teammates under the bus with more poise and precision than any pass he's thrown all season.

When told, Cable pulled him because he was out of sorts. He responded "No, I wasn't."

When asked about the turnovers, he invoked poor pass protection, poor route running, poor hands, and everything but his own poor decisions and passes.

This did not endear him to fans, teammates, or the coaching staff no matter what they say in the media.

He has since come out and taken responsibility for his actions, but that smacks of someone forcing him to come clean rather than him doing it on his own.

Sorry if that sounds cynical, but faith in Russell has yet to reward any one of us.

Hopefully the benching motivated him to work harder, get more serious, and understand he still has a long, long, long way to go before resembling an NFL quarterback on a consistent basis. Most professionals would take benching as a kick in the pants and we all have to hoped that's what's happened to big No. 2.

The pressure is on Russell to not only perform on the field, but to begin to act like he's being paid as the face of a franchise that takes the blame for losses and the credit for wins. If not, he may find himself very soon as the next big bust and I'm not talking in Canton.

Raiders Run D

After getting lit up by a Jets team that unequivocally stated, "we're going to run it down your throat," these guys have to be a little bit embarrassed.

It's one thing to get fooled and have some yardage put on you, it's quite another to know exactly what the other team is going to do and be powerless to stop it.

There are major factors to consider here, not the least of which is that the Raider defense was actually playing very well until Russell turned it over for a third time. It seemed, at that point, that the entire defense gave up, realizing that no matter how well they played the offense was just going to give the ball right back.

It's been a theme this season, the defense plays well to start the game, only to pack it in once the offense has stagnated for long stretches of time. The defense should never pack it in, but they do. It bothers me to no end, because they are one of the fastest and most physical defenses in the league when on their game.

But when they fall behind quickly, or they are on the field twice as much as their opponents, and are continually seeing the offense hand the ball back to the other team on a short field, discipline goes out the window and teams run wild on them.

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