Raiders Stay the Same, but Seahawks Shake Things Up

After losing eight consecutive games over a four-year period to the Raiders, the Seattle Seahawks had a difficult time trying to explain what happened after Sunday’s 38-9 victory over their AFC West nemesis.

The Seahawks couldn’t help but ask themselves: Are they that good or are the Raiders that bad?

With two road victories to open the season, the Seahawks can start claiming that they have arrived as an AFC contender. By defeating Washington by 21 points and the Raiders by 29, Seattle’s plus-50 point differential is the best in the NFL.

“If people expect us to be the same team that finished 2-14 two years ago or the team that finished 6-10 last season, they are going to be sadly mistaken,” Seattle safety Eugene Robinson said. “We are a totally different team. We have better players, we run different plays and we use different schemes. We are a team to be reckoned with.”

Based on their success against the Raiders, Robinson might be right.

The Seahawks seemed to be toying with the Raiders on both sides of the ball in racking up 332 yards and 22 first downs on offense, and forcing four turnovers and keeping the Raiders without an offensive touchdown.

Seattle kept drives alive on half of its 14 third-down attempts and made a first down on its only fourth-down try early in the second half. That led to a five-yard touchdown pass from Rick Mirer to Brian Blades that gave Seattle a 17-3 lead.

“It’s never easy out there, but they did do everything we expected from them,” Seattle wide receiver Michael Bates said. “They really didn’t vary much with their defensive coverages. They basically stayed with their same stuff.”

Bates should know because he and Mirer took advantage of the predictable Raider secondary late in the third quarter.

With the Raiders trailing, 17-3, Bates went in motion and ran a deep post pattern in front of cornerback Lionel Washington and scored on a 40-yard play to put the game out of reach.

“We knew that we would get them in a defense where (Washington) would be playing me back deep and to the outside,” Bates said. “Once I got over top of the defender, it was just like we drew it up.”

Seattle had the Raiders’ number on defense as well. Because they did not have much respect for the Raiders’ running game, the Seahawks concentrated on putting pressure on quarterback Jeff Hostetler to stop their passing attack.

The Seahawks learned from watching the Raiders’ opening loss to San Francisco that they had plenty of time to get a pass rush.

“We saw in film that they held the ball a long time on their passing plays,” Seattle cornerback Carlton Gray said. “On almost all of their pass plays, Hostetler held the ball at least three seconds and that is too long in this league.

“So, we figured that with a big-play offense like they had, we had to get as much pressure on them as we could. Things just worked out the way we wanted.”

Do the Seahawks think the Raiders are that bad?

“I think that they are a good team, but I am surprised that they go out and lose two games in a row like that,” said Seattle fullback Steve Smith, who was waived in June after eight seasons with the Raiders.

“I don’t know what their problem is, but they are not playing with confidence. Not the way they played in the past.”

Some of the Seahawks said the Raiders looked like a different team doing the same things from years past.

“They really haven’t changed much in that they line up the way you expect them to,” Robinson said. “Don’t get me wrong, they are still a very physical team that hits hard, but you get what you expect from them.”

Gray said that he noticed that Hostetler’s deep passing game was not sharp, which created a problem for the Raiders’ offense.

“On his deep passes, he did have more air under his ball than usual,” said Gray, who played at UCLA. “But it might have been from the pressure we were able to get on him.”

According to Seattle tight end Trey Junkin, who played with the Raiders in the late 1980s, the Raiders might be doing more fighting than playing.

“They seem to have lost focus on what they were doing,” Junkin said. “They were too worried about getting in that one extra punch or push, instead of playing football. They don’t need to do that. It just takes them out of their game.”