Two Eagles rivals look to bounce back in Week 9: Matchups, predictions for both games
- The Eagles are atop the entire NFL.
- The Cowboys are their next opponent.
- The Commanders are inconsistently surprising.
- The Giants are addicted to punting.
By Jake Beckman
Raiders offense vs. Giants defense
What can you say about the Raiders' offense, other than bad things? They’ve been atrocious. Their offense has yet to eclipse the 20-point threshold.
Vegas has zero consistency at quarterback, or anywhere really. Their new play-caller is some guy named Bo Hardegree, and their starting quarterback is going to be Aidan O’Connell.
Yes, it looks like the Raiders are going to play harder for their new coaches, but will that matter in terms of production? Pssh, probably not.
Hardegree was the quarterbacks' coach before he moved to the interim offensive coordinator role and he’s never called plays before. It’s easy to say, ‘Throw the ball to Davante Adams,” but O’Connell kind of stinks.
He’s started two games and he’s thrown for 313 yards total. One of those games resulted in a 30-12 loss to the Chicago Bears. The other was a 24-17 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. Those are two teams with atrocious defenses, and O’Connell wasn’t able to move the ball.
He threw the ball 52 times in those games. With that said, we can't state he wasn’t given the opportunity to perform. The Raiders’ offense is just terrible.
Now the Giants' defense? This week they traded defensive end Leonard Williams to the Seattle Seahawks. Williams isn’t/wasn’t very good, but he was a starter, so production-wise (or lack thereof) it’s still a knock on their defense. Other than that, everything is still the same, which is weirdly working for them.
They haven’t allowed more than 14 points in the past three weeks. Those performances came versus the Buffalo Bills, the Washington Commanders, and the New York Jets. Regardless of the opponent, that’s still kind of impressive. They’re allowing their offense to win.