NFL Week 8 preview podcast: Lions are Raiders’ biggest challenge to date

The 5-2 Detroit Lions are hoping to put last week’s game behind them and play more like the team they believe they are.

“It’s not us. That’s not what we’re about,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said of their 38-6 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. “It’s not what we’re about and we just didn’t, we just didn’t have it, we didn’t have it.”

A Monday night game at home against the Las Vegas Raiders may be just what the doctor ordered before the Lions’ break for the bye week. Vegas is 3-4, but they’ve faced the eighth-easiest schedule by DVOA, and their wins (Broncos, Packers, Patriots) all came against teams currently either last or second-to-last in the division.

Even their losses were against the NFL’s large middle class. They were dominated by an inconsistent Bills team, lost to the 2-4 Chargers, beat by a surprisingly 4-2 Steelers team, and then to top it all off, they were embarrassed last week by a 2-5 Bears team playing their undrafted rookie at quarterback.

We had a long chat with Raiders writer Bill Williamson on Thursday to discuss what’s going wrong and his confidence level in Vegas heading into Monday. Safe to say, he thinks the Raiders could be in for a long night.

“I think the Raiders are going to face their toughest opponent this season,” Williamson told us. “They played the Bills in Week 2, lost 38-10, (but) I think the fact that the Lions got hammered last week and they’re pissed, and they’re coming home and playing on Monday night, they’ve got the alt uniforms, I think the Raiders are going to go into a buzzsaw.

“I’m not saying the Raiders can’t win this game, but I think the Raiders are going to have to play their best game of the season, and this is a team that has won three games—one by one point, two by four—and their closest loss was a five-point game that was kinda in garbage time. It was never like, ‘Oh my god, they’re going to win this game.’ So I think the Raiders are going to be extremely challenged.”

Here are other topics we chatted about on this week’s show, along with timestamps to jump to that conversation.

• What’s going on with Jimmy Garoppolo? What’s working? What isn’t? (3:00)
• The Raiders have talent on offense: why isn’t it working? (7:00)
• Running game woes for Vegas: Josh Jacobs’ fault or the offensive line? (11:00)
• Should Lions load the box vs. Raiders offense? (12:45)
• How has rookie TE Michael Mayer played thus far? (13:45)
• Maxx Crosby vs. Penei Sewell (19:45)
• Will the Raiders be sellers at the trade deadline? (23:00)
• Raiders VERY weak in run defense (26:20)
• Could Lions injury on iOL hamper their chance to win? (28:45)
• How will Vegas defend the Lions’ passing attack? (30:10)
• PREDICTIONS! (33:00)

You can check out the show via the podcast below, or you can watch this show on YouTube and Twitch:

Check out Bill Williamson’s content over at our friends at Silver and Black Pride.