Entering the season, the Las Vegas Raiders were expected to have one of the best defenses in the National Football League.
However, the unit has been ravaged by injuries since the first week of the regular season when defensive end Malcolm Koonce’s injury was announced.
Koonce would be the first significant player from the Raiders' defense to go down with a substantial injury. Safety Marcus Epps would go down with a season-ending injury a few weeks later. Linebacker Divine Deablo, and defensive end Maxx Crosby would miss time as well with injuries.
These injuries have left the Raiders with a shell of the formidable defense it started the season with. Still, the Raiders have prided themselves on their ability to develop talent behind their notable starters. While many reserve players have played well over the last few weeks, the unit has undoubtedly struggled this season and again Sunday on the road against the Denver Broncos.
The Raiders' defense failed to tackle properly multiple times, allowing the Broncos to gain additional yardage and even chunk plays after Raiders defenders made initial contact. Raiders coach Antonio Piere acknowledged that tackling is something the team works on daily at the start of practice. He expressed his disappointment in the unit’s inability to tackle successfully and believes the players themselves are disappointed.
“It’s something we work on in the beginning of practice each and every day,” Pierce said. “We have to get guys down. We can grab, claw. You can punch the ball, and do all these things that we train on with turnovers, but at the end of the day, if you don’t put the man on the ground, now you are allowing explosives, and a couple of those explosives came on missed tackles.
“We have to keep playing. We have to get off the field on third down and tackling. If there was one thing I know we were probably disappointed in, live and probably when we watch on film is tackling. We have to do a better job of getting them on the ground.”
The Raiders have dropped multiple games they could have won because of poor play on one side of the ball or the other. The Raiders are again facing more turmoil than most other organizations around the league. However, they must make changes to turn the season around.
