Oakland Raiders would have made it had Jason Campbell, Darren McFadden not been injured – Part 2
Continued from Part 1.....
This is not to suggest that other injuries did not pose a problem to the Raiders. They did and did a lot. Among the other affected players for the Raiders this season were Chris Johnson, Michael Huff, Denarius Moore, Jacoby Ford and Louis Murphy but the
most nagging one for the team turned out to be the one that Campbell sustained.
Campbell’s injury too could not be well accounted for with Carson Palmer out there.
Palmer with 237 yards of passing could not prove the ground by filling up for Campbell’s absence, even though he led his team to a victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.
That was evident when Palmer did not fare that well when he played against the Detroit Lions which the Raiders lost 28-27.
The Raiders offense sure had more of the blame than their defence. Two likely touchdown passes were missed by Palmer which undoubtedly caused the Raiders the game.
This is how Palmer failed to justify his role as a quarterback and Raiders lost an important chance of making it to the playoffs.
With Campbell out there, the Raiders would have surely swept that game and make it to the playoffs.
Raiders could never manage to come up with the appropriate and proper replacements at the right time for these two players and that was the main reason why they had their season ended so soon.
It was the first time since 2002 that they looked strong contenders of the playoffs but all hopes came dashing down after they ended 8-8.
Though there was the failing defence line up which came out to be at its worst this season, yet it was not as much as the loss caused by the injuries to these two key players.
In fact the absence of key players from the team had contributed to the weak and fragile defence of the Raiders.
The Raiders defence was guilty of conceding 5.1 yards per carry and allowing 31 touchdown passes this season. The absence of key players from the team owing to injuries was also to account for this loss.
The Raiders had also committed 163 penalties this season for 1,358 yards which was a record in NFL for both the categories this season.
The previous record had been held by the Kansas City Chiefs since 1998.
Had Campbell and McFadden been out there, there is no doubt that the team would have witnessed a better discipline, which would have surely accounted for a substantial decrease in the team’s forfeiting penalties.
All said, there is no doubt that a number of factors contributed to the team’s elimination from the playoffs but the ones that were most responsible for their ouster were the injuries to Campbell and McFadden.
Their loss adversely affected the Raiders capability to win games at a critical time and led to the team’s downfall in victories from an earlier good start.
Raiders would have surely continued winning games in their presence rather than slumping down to 7-7 from an earlier start of 7-4 as was the case in their absence.
Those three straight losses the Raiders suffered were purely on account of the gap left due the absence of these two players.
Those losses if avoided would have surely led the Raiders team to the playoffs without any doubt.
You can view live coverage and analysis of the Super Bowl XLVI by http://answers.bettor.com/Users/Robert-California-u3050 on Sunday,
11:00pm, GMT
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