Oakland has continued to stock pile it's list of DTs on their roster with Parella, Sapp, and Ted Washington. They have 3 starter level players at the same position. I had heard that the new coordinator, Bob Ryan, was suposedly going to implement the 3-4 defense in Raider country. Now he's spewing some talk like he'll start all the three big tackles on the front 3. Sapp and Parella at end, then Washington as the Nose tackle!?! ...Now I know that Ryan just came from New England and they liked to use a number of different line-ups from time to time, but how is this going to work with the minutes each player is going to have to share??
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (gogobroncos)</div><div class='quotemain'>Oakland has continued to stock pile it's list of DTs on their roster with Parella, Sapp, and Ted Washington. They have 3 starter level players at the same position. I had heard that the new coordinator, Bob Ryan, was suposedly going to implement the 3-4 defense in Raider country. Now he's spewing some talk like he'll start all the three big tackles on the front 3. Sapp and Parella at end, then Washington as the Nose tackle!?! ...Now I know that Ryan just came from New England and they liked to use a number of different line-ups from time to time, but how is this going to work with the minutes each player is going to have to share??</div> To this, I say good. All three of the Raiders division rivals have had really good running games as of late. The Raiders hired Ryan to stop the bleeding. The front 4 couldn't stop anyone from gaining 200 yards per game (it seemed like it anyway). That combined with Parella being on IR, and players like Anthony Dorsett flat out giving up on plays makes me believe that whatever influnce Ryan has on this defense will be marked improvement. Sometimes, when you throw enough money (and defensive tackles) at a problem, the problem might go away. As far as having multiple starters at the same position, I look at that as just great depth at that position. Those boys in the middle get beat up and it would be nice to keep fresh legs rotating in throughout the game. I'm optimistic that Ryan will find a way for them to maximize any advantage that can be gained from this, and hopefully we'll see this free up the linebackers to make some huge plays this year. So my question to all of you is what do you now think that the chances are of the Raiders holding division opponents to under 50 yards per game rushing? We had defensive stands like this back in 2002 when a different big guy (Sam Adams) was clogging up the middle alongside Parella.
ROTR wrote: <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>So my question to all of you is what do you now think that the chances are of the Raiders holding division opponents to under 50 yards per game rushing?</div> kcgsc : (shaking magic 8-ball) "Signs point to No!" Priest, LaDainian and Portis were bound to pile up some yards having to face them all twice. At least neither of us will have to deal with Portis twice this season. If you guys end up with Dillon we could still be the RB Division. Go AFC West!
Well, the Raiders did hold him to olny 57 yards on 12/08/02. Let's not talk about the last two games though. These rose-colored glasses that I'm trying on are too fun right now.
