Pete Carroll opened up about a pre-game decision he made vs. Washington that left everyone pretty puzzled
Pete Carroll decided to go with Alex Cappa over Jackson Powers-Johnson against the Washington Commanders.
On Sunday, the Las Vegas Raiders got picked up, turned upside down, and shaken until their lunch money fell out of their pockets. The Washington Commanders were amazing, despite not having starting quarterback Jayden Daniels. All three phases were working well for the team that went to the NFC Championship last year.
When it comes to the Raiders, they didn’t do anything right. The biggest thing that was noticeable had to be the Raiders’ offensive line playing maybe as badly as they have in a long time. And, many believe that part of that is because of the decision not to play Jackson Powers-Johnson, who was healthy.
“It was a short week, and he just got back,” Carroll said when asked why he went with Alex Cappa over JPJ. “We’ll give Alex a chance to go again and see how that goes. He was available to play, but we just decided [that] for the continuity of coming out last week, we might be a little bit smoother, and we didn’t hit any of these days this week, and so it just felt like this was a better choice to go that way. The competition goes on.”
Raiders need Jackson Powers-Johnson, because Cappa isn’t it
Cappa led the league in blown blocks with 40 and led the league in pressures allowed. He was a reason that the Cincinnati Bengals allowed Joe Burrow to be hit as much as he was, and in this league, you can’t be the guy who allows premier QBs to be hit a ton.
On the Raiders, that certainly won’t cut it, because they don’t even have a premier QB to protect and get them out of bad situations like Joe Burrow did for the Bengals all last year, at least, that’s not what Geno Smith has shown us so far.
It’s worth noting that Cappa has been injured and playing through injuries for the last two years. So, maybe it will come to him eventually. The Raiders signed him because of his connection with John Spytek, the general manager, from their days with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Cappa wasn’t great on Sunday, and I’m willing to bet JPJ would have been at least serviceable.
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