Rookie left tackle has trouble protecting Carr
CARSON >> Kolton Miller, the Raiders’ rookie left tackle, had easily the worst game of his young career, surrendering three sacks to the Chargers on Sunday in Oakland’s 26-10 loss.
Rookie right tackle Brandon Parker wasn’t anything special in his first career start, but Miller’s deficiencies were exposed far more. He’s also nursing a right knee injury, which has required a protective brace.
“You have some knicks and knacks and some distractions during the week with treatment and other things,” Miller said. “You gotta learn to overcome those things and move on to the next play and not let it affect your game. I think I can definitely learn from that and move on from there.”
Melvin Ingram first left Miller in the dust with a spin move before taking Carr down. Raiders defensive end Arden Key utilized a similar spin move to beat Miller multiple times during training camp, and one of the game’s best pass rushers doing the same was no match for the rookie.
Darius Philon later plowed through Miller to take down Carr again, as Miller was left pushing Philon off his quarterback after the play was blown dead. In the fourth quarter, with the game already decided, Isaac Rochell used an inside swim move to beat Miller and take down Carr again.
Miller has drawn rave
reviews thus far after holding his own and then some against solid pass-rush units of the Rams, Broncos, Dolphins and Browns, but Sunday he took a major step back.
• In 24 career games against the Raiders prior to Sunday, Philip Rivers was 16-8 while completing almost 64 percent of his passes for over 252 yards per game, 1.7 passing touchdowns per game and less than an interception per contest.
Sunday his strong performances
against the Raiders continued, as the Chargers quarterback completed 22 of 27 passes for 339 yards and two touchdowns.
That comes on the heels of last season’s finale here at the StubHub Center, in which Rivers completed 28 of 37 passes for 387 yards and three touchdowns in a 30-10 win over the Raiders.
“He’s amazing, isn’t he?” Gruden said. “I mean he’s a great player. Great player, great competitor. He and (Chargers offensive coordinator)
Ken Wisenhunt, they’ve been working together awhile. They’ve got a pretty good handle on what they’re doing.”
Raiders defensive coordinator Paul Guenther said this week his unit’s No. 1 priority was stopping big plays after the Raiders surrendered gains of 41, 63 and 59, among others, while giving up 42 points in a win against the Browns.
Asked if his back line was fast enough to prevent big plays, Guenther didn’t say yes, instead saying, “Well
we got what we got. We gotta do the best job with what we’ve got right now.”
That job was not nearly good enough against Rivers, who tortured the Raiders’ porous defense yet again for gains of 48, 44 and 34 yards, just to name a few.
Rivers also took a shot at the Raiders defense with some nearly perfect trash talk caught on television.
“Nice defense, huh,” Rivers seemed to say loud enough for TV viewers and some Raiders defenders to hear as he prepared to take a snap late in the game.
Rivers compounded that putdown by yelling to tight end Virgil Green to run a seam route to clear space for an outside receiver, which worked to perfection even though the Raiders knew it was coming.
Raiders cornerback Daryl Worley noted before the game that Rivers is “a very high confidence guy.”
• Amari Cooper was nonexistent for third time this season. Here are three of Cooper’s lines this season: one catch for 9 yards, two catches for 17 yards, one catch for 10 yards.
The last one was Sunday’s, another ineffective outing for the Raiders’ top threat.
“He wasn’t targeted, but we called his number,” Gruden said. “Just because he isn’t targeted doesn’t mean we’re not trying. He was the primary several times today and he will tell you that. Sometimes the opposition tries to take away some guys and you have to go other places.”
The other two games? Eighteen combined catches, 244 yards and a touchdown.
Unfortunately for the Raiders, Cooper’s inconsistency seems to be here to stay, and that certainly won’t elevate him to the top tier of wide receivers in the NFL. Carr targeted his supposed No. 1 receiver as many times as Doug Martin and Derek Carrier, a sign something is off with the Carr-to-Cooper connection that can’t seem to stay on the right track.