It was sad to see when the receivers ran away from recently signed veteran middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter.
He looked like he was running in place. In fact, he looked like a guy who had been out of the game for two years.
The first play took place in the first quarter, Raiders tight end Zach Miller was coming across the middle after a play action fake had frozen the Eagles linebackers and Trotter tried to recover from the fake and stay up with him. It was no contest.
“We had a blitz on, and I was covering the tight end, and they had some play action,” Trotter said. “I bit on the ground, but I got back on the tight end as he came back across the field.”
“I have to do a better job reading and reacting to the run and pass,” Trotter said. “Whenever they play-action fake, you have to play the run, then get back as best as possible.”
Miller pulled away from the 32 year old middle linebacker and raced a total of 86 yards for a touchdown. It was the longest Raiders touchdown since 1994.
It wasn’t a surprise to me that the Raiders were going after Trotter. He came into game to stop the run, but a defense doesn’t dictate to an offense whether it’s going to run or pass.
His coming into the game was probably an automatic for the Oakland offense to pass rather than run.
The second play occurred with 2:02 left to go in the game and the Raiders were in a 3rd and 10 situation. The Eagles were out of timeouts, so it was a case of stop the Raiders or lose to a pathetic football team.
Troter was in the game because there other middle linebacker Omar Gaither was nursing a foot injury.
Raider fullback Gary Russell came out of the backfield after another run fake. He raced to the right sideline as Trotter chased him in pursuit.
Quarterback JaMarcus Russell put the ball out there for him to catch and it was an easy 13 yard game and ended any chances the Eagles might have had of coming back.
At this point bringing back Trotter looks like an awful idea.
Don’t think it’s going to go away because the Birds have quite a few teams on the schedule who have good tight ends to match up on Trotter.
I think they’re going to be forced to play zone when he comes into the game.
