The Oakland Raiders traveled to London earlier this week and are now awaiting the arrival of the Chicago Bears who will arrive on Thursday. This is an important game for both teams. Oakland is 2-2 and has a chance to get back into the hunt for the AFC West. Chicago is 3-1 and wants to head into their bye week with momentum. There are plenty of factors that can decide this game, but nobody is fooled. Raiders head coach Jon Gruden, like everybody else, knows the Bears defense will dictate everything.
Gruden sounded like a man who has a full understanding of what he’s up against. During his first press conference with the media over in London, he answered questions about the Raiders’ upcoming opponent. He made it clear that the worst thing his team can do is not take this defense seriously. Everybody from Derek Carr down to the backups will need to have their best game. He even joked about how his brother, Redskins head coach Jay Gruden, met failure against them in even simple situations like a QB sneak on 4th and short.
Inevitably Gruden was asked about Khalil Mack, the superstar pass rusher he willingly traded last September to Chicago. Everyone knows Mack is looking at this as a revenge game. Gruden though seemed to dodge addressing that directly, instead showering credit on others around him like Leonard Floyd and specifically defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano.
Suffice to say the Raiders head coach has a full appreciation of what he’s up against and just how tough his task ahead might be.
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Jon Gruden may not have the horses to tackle Bears defense
Right now the Raiders offense could best be called average. While they have a good quarterback in Derek Carr and some nice complementary pieces, this isn’t a unit that teams have generally feared thus far. They rank just 27th in passing and 21st in scoring. Much of their success to this point is thanks to a 9th-ranked rushing attack led by rookie running back Josh Jacobs. The problem is the Bears have the 3rd-ranked run defense, fresh off smothering leading rusher Dalvin Cook for just 35 yards last Sunday.
Dating back to last season, the Raiders are 1-5 when they failed to run for at least 90 yards in a game. The Bears defense has allowed 90 yards just once in a game dating all the way back to December 9th of 2018. This doesn’t bode well for Oakland who has allowed seven sacks in the past three games. Forcing Carr to stand tall against a pass rush that just got done dropping Kirk Cousins six times isn’t the ideal scenario in Gruden’s mind. So one can understand how this matchup is giving him a few headaches.
