Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
Now you are changing the goal posts as you said they would win less than 6. But I'm game if you are. I will let you take a good look at their schedule first before committing though to be fair and pick 9 for sure losses. I don't think people realize how much of a train wreck it was last season and they still won 6 games with a difficult schedule. The defense went from bottom five to top 10 in the final six weeks after KNJ (2nd worst DC in the history of the organization) was fired and Todd Downing the OC that JDR hired had never been an coordinator at any level and he's out of the league. They still won 6 games with a paper napkin offensive playbook and a difficult schedule. Now they have legit coordinators and a soft schedule. I realize there are a lot of skeptics of Gruden but he's surrounded himself with experience coordinators and while I doubt they are a Super Bowl contender this season or maybe even a playoff team they should be able to win 8 games on that schedule especially seeing the AFC West is a bit of a mess right now. Also the best travel schedule they have had in a long time so plenty of factors pointing to an increase in the win column over last season.
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This wasn't me just crapping on them because I dislike them or anything. I've just looked at some of the advanced stats, and much like last year, they aren't favourable for the Raiders. They were actually somewhat "lucky" to even get to six wins last year.
Now you could be right and Gruden could be the cure, but I think the game has kind of passed him by and I still see way too many question marks on the team to be willing to bet on them improving by two games.
Looking at their schedule, I really only see four games that I would consider locks for them to win.
But yeah I'm willing to set their O/U at 7.5 and bet the under if you want to take the over.