NFL Week 4: New England Patriots at Oakland Raiders

Frank Doyle wonders if New England can bounce back from its first loss to Buffalo in eight years when the Patriots visit the dangerous Raiders on Sunday!

New England’s blushes over the Patriots’ loss at Buffalo have been spared by happenings in another sport. The Red Sox’s spectacular calamity has awakened all manner of old ghosts in Boston’s sports psyche, ghosts that have been dormant since Curt Schilling took the mound in his bloody sock seven years ago but are now right back in the picture.

How grateful is Bill Belichick for the distraction? Probably not very. It all depends on how Belichick views the loss at Buffalo.

If he views it as one of those things, he swallows it, bawls out the players a few times and unleashes his vengeance on the Raiders. If he views it as proof that there are cracks in the Patriots defense that can’t be papered over or hidden by that high-scoring offense, then there will have been many late nights at Foxborough this week.

New England is a five point road favorite at the Coliseum, but the total is 55, the highest on the NFL betting board this week. That New England defense is definitely creaky.

Can Oakland make the most of it? The Raiders are one of the signature franchises of the League but they’ve lost their way badly after losing Super Bowl XXXVII to Tampa Bay. But Oakland showed signs of life last year to go 8-8 after seven consecutive losing seasons and they’re only a jump ball against Buffalo away from being 3-0 for this season.

The key to the Raider revival is the running game. Oakland leads the NFL in rushing yards per game, but the Raiders have to think about passing more this Sunday as the Patriots rank dead last in the league in defending the pass.

The question for the Raiders to decide is: do they play to their strengths and run the ball at New England, or do they take to the skies, because not passing against New England is like turning up a free lunch right now?

The problem with going with the passing game against New England is that you’re asking Jason Campbell to beat Tom Brady at Tom Brady’s own game. That’s not going to happen. The sensible thing for Oakland to do is to run McFadden to eat up the clock and hope the defense can limit the damage Brady does when he has the ball. If New England goes 21-0 nothing up then the Raiders have no option but to pass, but the Bills comeback has taken some of the aura from the Patriots. The Raiders will know they’ll always have a chance.