the Raiders are amongst that list<\/a>? Seventh. And guess who is king of the mountain? You guessed it, the Seahawks.<\/p>\nFlipping to the AFC Championship game between the New England Patriots and Broncos and Mother Nature had her way with all three phases of the game: Offense, defense, and special teams. But even before the snow fell, each defensive unit stymied the offense and points came at a premium. Which meant field goal range was a boon in a tightly contest game.<\/p>\n
Denver kicker Wil Lutz whiffed one a kick before the field at Mile High was covered in snow. And when the Broncos lined up for a game-tying fourth-quarter field goal was blocked (tipped) and Lutz watched his second attempt not go through the uprights. New England defensive tackle Leonard Taylor got his fingertips on the kick forcing the miss.<\/p>\n
Lutz\u2019s counterpart \u2014 New England\u2019s Andy Borregales \u2014 nailed one of his three attempts showcasing that the AFC title tilt was rough for both special teams units. Patriots punter Bryce Baringer struggled with his boots for much of the day with eight punts for 303 yards (37.9 average) with a long of 45 yards. His counterpart \u2014 the Broncos\u2019 Jeremy Crawshaw \u2014 was booming his boots in comparison with six punts for 309 yards (51.5 average) with a long of 60.<\/p>\n
Perhaps, there will be a time where most NFL teams play within a dome and weather elements are only the concern of getting to and leaving the game. Until then, special team remains an integral part of a winning and losing football team.<\/p>\n
Thus, once the Raiders make their decision and hire a new head coach, that new lead man must assemble a quality coaching staff to ensure all three phases of the game are not only quality, but working with the same goal in mind: Not stinking up the joint.<\/p>\n
Be it Seattle offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak or another candidate that assumes the mantle as Las Vegas head coach, a special teams coordinator that can bring the Raiders unit back to prominence is ideal. Fortunately, Kubiak got to see up close what McVay\u2019s ignorance to that particular phase of his football team did. But it appears McVay has learned the error of his ways as the Rams hired Bubba Ventrone as the new special teams boss. Ventrone most recently served as assistant head coach and special teams coordinator for the Cleveland Browns (2023-25) and was the special teams boss for the Indianapolis Colts (2018-22). Over that course of time, Ventrone\u2019s special teams group ranked amongst the league\u2019s best.<\/p>\n
Adding a special teams coordinator that can not only shore up the blocking up front on field goals and punts, but also ignite a kick and punt return game that\u2019s been flatlined and not electric, allows for the Raiders to have a semblance of complementary football.<\/p>\n
Which is an ever-so fleeting thing when it comes to the Silver & Black.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A muffed punt. Misfires on field goals. And a tipped kick to preserve the lead. Depending on which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2065],"tags":[7,1744,393,77335,2455,2454,6,525],"class_list":{"0":"post-720933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-las-vegas-raiders","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-las-vegas","10":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","11":"tag-las-vegas-raiders-analysis","12":"tag-lasvegas","13":"tag-lasvegasraiders","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-raiders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115994163002135250","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}