New FSM Preview: Raiders Vs Rams Preseason Game 2

Raiders vs 49ers - Preseason 2023 | Franchise Sports Media | Raiders vs 49ers recap

Photo Credit: Trisha LaCoste/Franchise Sports Media

FSM Preview: Raiders (1-0) vs Rams (0-1) Preseason Game 2

If the Raiders stay healthy, they can make some noise.

The Raiders travel to Los Angeles to take on the Rams.

Josh McDaniels is testing the depth of his team.

Raiders vs Rams | Franchise Sports Media | Raiders defense — *Photo Credit: Trisha LaCoste/Franchise Sports Media*

Like the Raiders, the Rams used the first preseason game to test their depth beyond the starters. Even though Las Vegas pulled out a seemingly impressive victory, Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels says he’d still like to see progress this week in Los Angeles.

“I don’t think it’s any more important than any other days. We’d like to continue to improve as a team in each phase, I think that’s the most important thing against a good team that’s very well coached with different schematic challenges. So, I think our team has been consistent in terms of their approach. Now, we’re trying to fine tune some of the details, depending on the phase we’re talking about in our game so we can improve. And so, there’s a lot of things we saw last night and this morning on the film that we know we can do better, and we’re going to need to do better as we go forward. So, we’ll be hard at work tomorrow discussing that with our team, and then hopefully we can make some progress here in LA.”

The Silver and Black got a head start on their road trip to Los Angeles, leaving Las Vegas Sunday night after their preseason win over the 49ers. The Raiders and Rams will have joint practices this week before their Saturday preseason game. McDaniels feels that doing so will give his team the best chance to prepare properly.

“The thought process with the logistics here, relative to the mandatory day off and those types of things – we can’t travel on a mandatory day off, so we just thought this is the best thing logistically for us, is to go ahead and travel after the game. And that way we can kind of have our feet on the ground here and not try to do too much the day before we’re getting ready to practice with another football team. Meaning, if we take the day off at home Monday, and then try to go over the San Francisco stuff Tuesday at our place, hurry up and kind of cram in something for LA, and then travel on the same day, then get up and go practice with them. We just didn’t feel like that was conducive to giving ourselves the best opportunity to have a productive day. So, we thought this was best.”

The Las Vegas Raiders are showing trust in their offense.

The offensive line battle is one worth watching.

Eluemenor looks to have an edge in the position.

Raiders vs Rams | Franchise Sports Media | Raiders Offensive Line — *Photo Credit: Trisha LaCoste/Franchise Sports Media*

Going into training camp, it was believed that right tackle would be one of the most significant position battles, and so far, that has been the case. Jermaine Eluemenor and Thayer Munford are vying for the starting right tackle position, with Eluemenor havin

g an edge, as he started all 17 games there last season. However, both players have looked good in practice and on the field against San Francisco. McDaniels expects the battle to continue this week against the Rams on Saturday.

“Yeah, both of them did some good things. I thought both of them were challenged. Like I said, this is a really good front, so they got a decent chunk during the week and then each of them had a handful of drives yesterday in the game too. So, some good, some positive, and then a few things that I think our entire tackle group can learn from relative to playing that style of defense. So, I’m pleased with the way they’re going about it, they’re competing hard. I think they’re making one another better, that whole group, and look forward to seeing the challenges that we’re going to see this week too.”

McDaniels continued.

“I think there were some guys – like I said after the game, I thought our players played with decent effort and competitiveness throughout. I like that across the board. And I think that we had a number of guys that did some decent things, but I also know that there’s enough guys that – they all played enough plays to be able to go in there and try to make some corrections tomorrow. So, I wouldn’t say anybody specifically stood out.”

The Las Vegas Raiders are depending on their line.

As they enter week two of the preseason, the Raiders continue to instill culture McDaniels is looking for.

.The Raiders have many options on the offensive line.

Raiders vs Rams | Franchise Sports Media | Zeus White & Aidan O'Connell — *Photo Credit: Trisha LaCoste/Franchise Sports Media*

Part of the culture McDaniels and the Raiders front office looked to improve upon was not only their depth but the quality of their depth. This culture change can be seen in the slew of talent that the Raiders brought in, even more so when you consider the Raiders added quality depth at nearly every position, even positions they were seemingly set at, like the quarterback.

The Raiders signed veteran quarterback Brian Hoyer and drafted rookie quarterback Aidan O’Connell from Purdue. O’Connell performed well on Sunday, finishing with nearly a 118 passer rating.

“They all had opportunities, and each guy did his job generally, made a few plays with that group. Had a couple of other opportunities that we didn’t quite come up with. I know Aidan [O’Connell] and Tre [Tucker] had that chance down the sideline to make a kind of a rather big one, and we were close on that. But they competed hard, they blocked hard. I thought they blocked decent for some of our edge stuff that we did in the running game, which was good to see. But much to learn from and much to continue to get better at.”

McDaniels continued.

” I think there’s a process to that [building a winning culture] and when you change things in an organization, and there’s always a new vision or a way of doing things that takes a little time of getting used to in terms of kind of perfecting the detail and execution of whatever phase of it it might be, whether that’s off the field, on the field, in the offseason, during the season, whatever it might be. So, I think yesterday was a different feeling relative to last year’s first game. Last year’s first game was the first time for all of us together, so we were, again, trying to get used to it and those things are things that hopefully we’ve improved on as the year went on last year and obviously through the offseason and into this year…”