Rams quarterback Jared Goff was able to pick the Raiders apart last night, standing in clean pockets, and rarely under much pressure.
Clearly, it’s the kind of thing Jon Gruden is going to have to study more to see exactly how that happened.
“When you can run the ball like they ran in the second half, it’s very hard to rush the passer,” Gruden said, via James Ham of NBC Sports Bay Area. “Obviously, we didn’t get to Goff enough, and we didn’t get to Gurley enough. We’ll take a good look at the reasons why we didn’t.”
Hmmmmm. What could a reason be, that they weren’t exactly able to bear down on Goff?
Oh, that’s right, they traded one of the league’s best pass-rushers to the Bears.
The lack of pressure without former star Khalil Mack was obvious (especially after he filled up a stat sheet in his opener with Chicago). Goff was sacked once and only hit twice, with rookie Arden Key getting a pressure early.
Bruce Irvin did his part, with a sack and forcing a fumble in the second quarter. The Rams recovered that one, but the Raiders never touched Goff again, leading to lots of photos of him in his white uniform with no Raider in sight.
“We knew we had to rush Goff and we couldn’t give him too much time,” Irvin said. “I don’t think we did a good enough job of putting a lot of pressure on him.”
Somebody definitely didn’t do a good enough job preparing them for such situations, and it wasn’t Irvin or Key.
But hey, they have those future first-round picks and the salary cap room. So they’ve got that going for them.