Oakland, CA –- Monday night football, season & home opener, and against a hated division rival who in all accounts should be a beatable team this year…

All the ingredients needed to take that next step forward into a season of respectability. Instead, what happened to the Raiders was a do-it-yourself clinic on how to beat yourself with mental mistakes, penalties, and an unwillingness to change things up on defense.

First, let’s look at the mental mistakes. The Raiders looked to unleash it’s formidable running game on a Denver Broncos team that was one of the worst teams at stopping the run last year; and run is exactly what the Raiders did. On their opening offensive drive, Oakland got a kick-start with a 57-yard kick off return by Johnnie Lee Higgins. It was a steady diet of hand offs to running backs Darren McFadden and Justin Fargas. The Raiders even converted on a 4th down to keep the drive alive. All that hard work of driving down the field came crashing down when quarterback JaMarcus Russell fumbled (slipped out of his hand), while reaching back to make a pass.

That wouldn’t be the only costly error on offense for Oakland. In the second quarter, wide receiver Ronald Curry drops an easy pass with no one around him for what would have been major yardage. The pass hit Curry in both hands before it dropped harmlessly to the ground. The Raiders would be forced to punt.

On its next offensive drive, Higgins would badly muff a reverse hand off as Denver would scoop it up to claim the fumbled ball. Higgins later in the game would also blow it when on another reverse handoff, instead of getting outside the tackles and throwing the ball away when the defense read and reacted to the play, he opted to run to the sidelines 15-yards deep in his backfield leaving the Raiders to climb out of a 2nd and 25 hole.

The defensive mistakes were two-fold. Newly acquired cornerback DeAngelo Hall was picked apart all night long by rookie wide receiver Eddie Royal. Hall would give the receiver a 10-yard cushion the entire night as he accumulated 149 yards (mostly on Hall) and a touchdown, (when it looked like Hall had broke off his coverage and released Royal). Hall would compound the mistakes by committing two personal fouls in three plays.

But where the biggest defensive mistake came from was the sideline. The Raiders stayed in man coverage the entire night. There was no mixing up coverages and there were no blitzes all night long, thus allowing Broncos quarterback, Jay Cutler, the luxury to sit back and throw to any receiver he wanted to at will. The four Raiders down lineman did not get any pressure on Cutler the entire night as the defense gave away 441 total yards to its divisional foe.

The Broncos would score often throughout the game as they amassed 41 points and ushered the Raiders out of their own stadium as scores of faithful fans walked out to their cars with 10 minutes remaining in the game. So much was promised, so much was said to be different, to be better when in fact, fans were treated to it’s home team that showed it was not yet ready to turn that corner and looked as if some of the coaching staff was inept or unable to scout, game plan, or compete against a divisional rival that for the most part out-coaches this staff in his sleep.