Why The Raiders Are Only Focused on One Thing

The Raiders' Main Focus

The Raiders enter their Week 1 matchup against the New England Patriots somewhat blind, as the Patriots have about the same amount of changes within their coaching staff and roster as the Raiders.

Las Vegas can only predict so much of what the Patriots will do, as they do not much film on this year's Patriots outside small sample sizes in the preseason. As much of a disadvantage as it could be, it also forces the Raiders to focus more on doing their respective jobs correctly, than on the Patriots.

Following practice this week, Pete Carroll made it evident the Raiders are only focused on what they can control, which is themselves and how well they execute on Sunday.

"I don't know if I have the same approach as Coach [Mike] Vrabel. I'm not sure what it is, I’m just coming from the outside in just like you guys are observing. But from our end of it, we always want to balance the game out, and we want to do a really good job to do that. And that takes both sides of the football and the kicking game to work together to make that happen,” Carroll said. 

Carroll noted that he and his coaching staff are, and have been on the same page from the start. Overall, the Raiders had too many moving pieces this offseason to worry about much more than what is happening within their own ranks.

“Chip [Kelly] and I see eye to eye from the start, of this conversation that we had about coming here and all that, and I'm thrilled to be working with him, and I can't wait to see it all come to light in not just the first game, but it'll take us a month before you see really what we are and who we're becoming,” Carroll said.

“But as far as somebody else's program, I don't know how they're doing it, but in our place right here, we know that balance is huge, and so we need to always, always take care of the football. In those games you talked about, yeah, we were plus 28 turnover ratio. So you want to know how you win. That's how you win. Take care of the football."