Raiders hope ground game flies with them to Los Angeles

The Raiders will go from playing in miserable Cleveland conditions last week to the climate-controlled sanctuary of SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday.

They hope their running game makes the trip with them.

In a game where throwing the ball was an adventure for both quarterbacks and the defenses knew the run was coming, the Raiders were able to rack up 209 yards and average 4.6 yards per attempt.

The breakout performance came on the heels of the Raiders being held under 100 rushing yards in two of the previous three games.

Quarterback Derek Carr said he hopes the success can carry over, but knows there is no guarantee what works one week will work the next.

“Looking back at the film … I don’t know what the correlation would be,” Carr said. “I just know that the double teams, the footwork, the vision, all that kind of stuff was on point. It just looked good.”

From his point of view, against the Browns Carr said “the line of scrimmage was moving, and if we can continue to do that good things happen.”

Here are three keys as the Raiders travel to Los Angeles to play the Chargers at 1:05 p.m. Sunday.

Keep it going

The Raiders will be a dangerous team if they can continue to run the ball so effectively.

It won’t be easy.

The starting offensive line the team envisioned before the season has only been on the field together for three snaps.

Starting right tackle Trent Brown is back on the COVID list and left guard Richie Incognito remains on injured reserve. Left tackle Kolton Miller didn’t practice all week and his status is up in the air for Sunday.

Still, offensive line coach Tom Cable has been able to patch things together with a great deal of credit going to reserve tackles Sam Young and Brandon Parker, as well as versatile Denzelle Good doing a bit of everything.

They will all be called upon to help running back Josh Jacobs keep the momentum going, which will be pivotal to the offense in the second half of the season.

“That’s who we want to be,” offensive coordinator Greg Olson said. “We feel like we have to run the football to stay balanced. … A big part of what we do is the run game and obviously Josh is a part of it. We were extremely happy with him after his rookie season and we like where he’s at right now.”

Defense defends itself

The Raiders’ defense entered last week facing a litany of questions about what needed to be done to turn things around.

They answered some of those queries with their best performance of Paul Guenther’s three-season run as defensive coordinator.

Perhaps aided by the weather, the Raiders surrendered just 223 total yards and held Cleveland to 3 of 10 on third down.

The adjustments worked, but coach Jon Gruden knows the process is far from over.

“We only had 23 minutes of possession on defense. That was a big help,” Gruden said. “We’re tweaking it. We’re trying to put our players in the best position to succeed and also to try to attack the opponent. It’ll never be the same every week. We will tweak it. This week will be no different.”

Hello, Mr. Herbert

The Raiders will get their first look at rookie quarterback Justin Herbert, who looks like he may be part of this rivalry for some time.

While he has struggled in the win-loss column, Herbert has put up impressive stats and has looked poised beyond his years as a rookie.

“I think he’s a big, tall guy who can move around,” Guenther said. “He’s got a strong arm; he’s hit a lot of deep balls throughout his course of time he’s been in there. He’s come in early in the season and really, he’s been acting like he’s a veteran player. So, he can make all the throws, he can move around the pocket and cause some issues with his legs.”

The Raiders lead the all-time series 64-54-2.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.