Raiders:
Next challenge is to end road losing streak.
CLEVELAND — New coaches, bunch of new players, new mind-set.
That message from Raiders coach Jack Del Rio is probably written on top of all the players’ itineraries this weekend. Oakland is feeling good coming off its last-minute win over Baltimore, but most of the players don’t have fond memories of the road.
The 1-1 Raiders play the 1-1 Browns in Cleveland, knowing that they have lost 11 straight road games, dating to Nov. 17, 2013. It’s worse in the Eastern time zone, as Oakland has dropped 16 in a row there going back to Dec. 6, 2009, at Pittsburgh.
Del Rio is borrowing a quote from one of his favorites, Patriots coach Bill Belichick, when he talks about the crowd noise this weekend and next in Chicago.
“They’ll be as loud as we let them be,” Del Rio said. “That’s really what happens when you go into an opposing place. The crowd will be as loud as you allow them as the visiting team to be.
“If you go in there and you can make plays and have them sit down, have them be less a part of the game, then you have the ability to do that as a football team.”
Del Rio says the losing streak is only a big deal in the media’s minds.
“For us, this is our first opportunity,” he said. “This is chapter three in our season. We had the first two at home. Chapter three goes on the road. We get an opportunity to go on the road and compete. We’re going to define who we are on the road. We get started Sunday at 1 p.m.” EST.
Quarterback Derek Carr is 0-8 on the road, but is coming off what coaches, teammates and fans hope is a breakthrough game. He completed 30 of 46 passes for a career-high 351 yards in Week 2, with seven of those hookups coming on an 80-yard, gamewinning drive.
He seems to realize that the Raiders may do better this week if he hands off more to running back Latavius Murray. Oakland has thrown the ball 89 times this season as compared with 35 rushing attempts. Murray has 26 carries for 109 yards and 10 catches for 58 yards.
“Oh, that’s my best friend,” Carr said. “When he’s going, it makes mine and the receivers’ job easier.”
Murray could also be the BFF of a Raiders defense that has allowed 33 points in each of the first two games if he can help eat up the clock and keep the fired-up Browns’ offense off the field.
Did we mention that Cleveland has the worst run defense in the league, allowing 320 yards in the first two games? Carr isn’t tipping the game plan, just using common sense, when he says you keep feeding the running back even if he doesn’t have success early.
“It’s always important to stick with it because you’re always so close from one just popping for 80 yards,” he said. “Late in games, you normally see the same run that, bam, there’s a 30yarder. Bam, there’s an 18-yarder.”
Sticking with it also would require going to the run game to start off Sunday. The Raiders have run a league-low 12 times on 1st-and-10. They average 4.6 yards on those runs, while their 5 yards per first-down pass play ranks 31st, ahead of just the Broncos.
Del Rio and offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave talked all preseason about how their offense started in the trenches with the offensive line opening up holes for Murray. Musgrave practically wanted to scream, “Sample size!” when asked repeatedly about the run game last week.
“Well we just had two games,” he said. “I think everybody has to focus on the running back to try to stop the run because you don’t want to die that slow death of getting it run down your throat, which would be the ideal way to do it.”