Murphy and Higgins Making Plays With Go-To-Guy Out

In the preseason opener against the Cowboys, Chaz Schilens emerged as Jamarcus Russell's go-to-guy.  Schilens had a very good game with 5 catches for over 50 yards and also drew a PI which moved the ball 47 yards setting up a score.  A few days later Chaz fractured a bone in his foot and things weren't looking so good for the Raiders' passing game.

Well turns out that we have other capable WRs who can make plays.

Now their stats are not mind boggling or anything like that and unless you watched the game against the 49ers you probably don't know about the play that Higgins made against "lock down" corner Nate Clements.  JLH put a move on Clements that he just wasn't ready for.  It kind of reminded me of Tim Brown because the move Higgins did was subtle but very effective.  Clements was beat badly and all he could do to prevent a TD was grab and hold Higgins' jersey.  If he didn't interfere he would have given up two TDs instead of just one. 

That brings us to rookie WR Louis Murphy.  After having a solid NFL debut last week with two grabs for 40 yards, he followed that up with two more grabs for 34 yards and a touchdown.  The Raiders were inside the five yard line but a couple of penalties set up a third and goal from outside the redzone. 

Everyone was thinking FG but Louis Murphy ran a nice corner route and Nate Clements released him to a safety that wasn't there because Russell had looked left first, drawing the safety in that direction, and then looked right and fired a strike to Murphy in the corner of the endzone.  It was an excellent play and even better execution.

So much for the talk about us not having any other reliable WRs.  Murphy and Higgins are more than capable and they, along with DHB, Walker, and Zach Miller, will hold it down in the passing game while our number one WR is out.

That's it for now.  Thanks for reading.

RAIDERS 4 LIFE ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !