The Raiders walked out of Week 8 with a win, but not with a clean bill of health for their defense.
Las Vegas made the stops it needed against the New York Jets, yet the rest of the performance left plenty for Rob Leonard’s group to sort through. That’s the reality of a defense still being built on the fly, especially in a season where the Raiders are leaning on a young secondary and asking first- and second-year players to grow up fast.
Leonard didn’t sugarcoat what he saw after practice Thursday.
“It was tough sledding. We need to be better, and we talked about some things. It’s hard to comment on what their mindset was, but we tried to fix some things and adjust,” Raiders defensive coordinator Rob Leonard said following practice on Thursday.
He was even more direct about the overall feel of the game.
“It wasn’t pretty. There’s a lot we have to fix, but I’ve been here a couple years, and not many times we come out finding a way to win.
I was proud of the resilience of getting hit in the mouth the first three plays, and we have a red-area stop on the three-yard line. So, there’s a lot of points on the little things that helped us win that game and how they rallied in the fourth quarter.
It was really fun to see.”
Now comes a much stiffer challenge.
The 49ers bring a 6-0 start that stamped them as one of the league’s best teams, and Leonard knows exactly what his defense is walking into. San Francisco’s offense gives you very few easy answers and plenty of problems at every level.
“They’re fundamentally sound, man. They’re a clean operation, and they got some good players.
Quarterback’s playing at a high level, good tight end, running backs, and the offensive line is really good. So, that’s what jumps out to me, how fundamentally sound they are, and they’re able to put a lot of pressure on you,” Leonard said.
That’s a bad matchup for a Raiders team still trying to clean up the rough edges in its rebuild. Las Vegas has spent this season trying to patch holes as best it could, especially in the defensive backfield, where the front office added multiple young players with the idea that they’d grow into bigger roles over time.
Instead, they’ve been thrown into the fire early, and Week 8 showed exactly why that process can be messy.
The Raiders are only in the first season of their actual rebuild, and the roster has been shaped with serviceable options in mind at several spots. But young cornerbacks and safeties usually have to take their lumps before things start to settle down, and that’s where this group is right now.
Sunday also carries some extra weight beyond the standings. Leonard called it a meaningful matchup for people who understand the history behind it.
“If you respect the game and understand how this thing really went down and what it was when they were there, it means a lot to a lot of people. I think it’s awesome to be a part of. It’s very humbling, and we want to go and put on a performance that everybody’s proud of as a team,” Leonard said.
At 4-4, the Raiders still have a real chance to make noise in the playoff race. But they’re also entering another brutal three-game stretch, and they’ve already dropped four of their last five. That makes Week 9 feel bigger than a normal midseason game.
For Las Vegas, the assignment is simple to say and hard to pull off: clean up the mistakes, survive another difficult test, and keep the rebuild moving forward one week at a time.
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