Chiefs game no lock for shaky Raiders

Today, I was checking out CBS Sports’ Week 8 picks.  Kudos to them getting that done and published even though it’s only Tuesday.  To my surprise, the Raiders were a unanimous pick over the Chiefs, even though the Raiders barely won against Jacksonville, the Chiefs are coming off of a bye, they have one of the premier running backs in football, and the game is at Arrowhead, a notoriously unfriendly stadium to visiting teams.

As I said earlier in the week, the Raiders have nothing about which to be overconfident.  While they showed a lot of heart and resolve in coming back to beat the Jags, it was still pretty ugly.  Carson Palmer is playing well, and he stepped it up with his no-huddle offense late in Sunday’s game.  It’s time for him to completely take over.  I get that the Raiders can’t run the no-huddle offense all game, but they can run it a lot.  Palmer should be trusted to make the right decisions, even if sometimes (the last two games) he’s regressed into trying to force balls, resulting in turnovers.

The biggest area to watch, and biggest surprise to me on Sunday, was the failure of the offensive line.  From the get-go, Palmer was hurried, hit, and sacked.  The line didn’t undergo that many changes from last year, when it was a core strength.  They need to get it together in a hurry.  Ugly win or not, beating the Jaguars was the first step in a possibly streak that could somehow land the Raiders 4-4 before their game against the Ravens, who are suddenly looking quite beatable as well.  Crazy as it is, the Raiders are only one game out of first place right now.  But, they have absolutely minimal room for error if they want to make it interesting.