Back on the road, where ‘we’ve shown resilience’
DETROIT — Marco ... Polo ... Marco ... Polo ...
The Raiders are still in some unfamiliar waters. A year ago at this point, they were 0-9 and now here they are at 4-5 — and the coach and players were actually talking playoffs a few weeks back.
The L-word is even surfacing this week, as Oakland takes on Detroit (2-7) on Sunday. That’s “letdown.” This is the first of two road games against bad teams, with Tennessee (2-8) on deck. Sorry, did we say “bad?” “I expect them to come out fired up, playing their tail off,” Raiders quarterback Derek Carr said. “When you turn the film on, that’s what you see. You see a defense that flies to the football. They run around, they make plays and they’re passionate about it.
“Like I said, we have our work cut out for us.”
While Oakland came out flat last weekend for the first time this season, the Raiders are 4-for-4 in showing up on the road and making the home fans sweat. Not only are the two wins as many as the Raiders have had in the previous three seasons combined, but they had chances to win games at Chicago and Pittsburgh as well.
“We’ve shown resilience on the road,” defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. said. “Being tough, being able to start fast, being able to play with really good football teams. We finish sometimes, and sometimes we haven’t finished.
“It’s very obvious to all of us in the room that we have a lot of work to do. … We have to play good football more often.”
That is going to be tougher without linebacker Aldon Smith, who was suspended for a year Tuesday. Besides the 3.5 sacks, he was also very good against the run.
Oakland was ranked second in the NFL against the run before giving up 458 combined yards in losses to the Steelers and Vikings. Luckily for the Raiders, the Lions not only don’t run the ball well, they are allergic to it — they rank last in the NFL at 67 yards per game, and leading rusher Ameer Abdullah has only 240 yards.
Oakland ranks 20th running the ball, but it’s often too busy throwing the ball around the yard. The Raiders have scored 72 points in their past two road games (San Diego and Pittsburgh), and Carr has thrown for at least 300 yards in three straight games and has two or more TD passes in each of the past four.
He did have two of his six interceptions, though, last weekend against the Vikings. And he forgot about his buddy, Michael Crabtree. The receiver was only targeted five times against Minnesota — after being thrown to 32 times in the previous three games and scoring four touchdowns.
The Lions aren’t good on defense, but they do have a possible game-wrecker in defensive end Ezekiel Ansah, who has seven sacks in his third season.
“He didn’t play a whole lot of football growing up, and I think he’s really coming into his own,” Detroit coach Jim Caldwell said in a conference call. “When you’re 280 pounds and you run as fast as he does, he has power, he has length, he’s relentless, and he knows how to get to the quarterback. He can do it inside or outside.”
Ansah will get some help inside from defensive tackle C.J. Wilson, who was cut for the second time this season by the Raiders on Nov. 7 and claimed off waivers by the Lions. He is a little fired up. “I’m taking this as a personal game,” Wilson told reporters. “It’s like my Super Bowl. … Yeah, it’s almost like a slap in my face.”
See, there’s no way the Raiders can look past this game. It’s the friggin’ Super Bowl.