Both the Bills and Raiders are coming off big Week 1 wins. Oakland picked up where they left off with a win in the AFC West while Buffalo just crushed, last year’s AFC West Champion, the Kansas City Chiefs. So both teams head into this week knowing that a win would give them a perfect record through two weeks. With them both likely to spend the year chasing Superbowl contenders within their divisions – San Diego and New England – a 2-0 start would be huge in a stacked AFC.
This is the type of game Oakland struggled to win last year, one out of the division! And while Buffalo ended up with the third pick in the draft this past April, they also showed signs of life and resurgence last season giving teams like Baltimore and Pittsburgh tough games. However that was last year, and right now we are all about Week 2 and the three things to focus on in this game.
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1) Stopping Wimbley
Once regarded as a first round bust in Cleveland, Kamerion Wimbley really found a home in Oakland’s 4-3, both as a LB and when lining up as a DE in obvious passing situations – he lined up at defensive end on 31 of the 33 times he rushed the passer in Week 1. It may have taken him longer than people thought, but he has blossomed into the pass rushing threat that many thought he would be coming out of Florida State back in 2006. In week one he delivered again, getting pressure on Kyle Orton seven times.
The man tasked with stopping Wimbley will likely be Buffalo’s Erik Pears – Wimbley has only played three snaps at the right defensive end spot since Week 12 last year. Pears hadn’t seen significant playing time since back in 2009 where he started four games – two at RT and two at LG for Oakland, which included a dreadful performance where he gave up seven total pressures in a game with Houston. Last week, however was a better game (+0.6 as a pass blocker) than many would have expected and while few will be expecting him to hold his own against Wimbley in passing situations, he needs to limit Wimbley’s pressures and keep Ryan Fitzpatrick upright this Sunday.
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2) Bills D-Line v Raiders O-Line
You really can’t talk about the Bills defensive line and start anywhere else than with Kyle Williams. And while Williams (+0.1) didn’t set the world alight last week against Kansas City, he is coming off an absolutely mammoth 2010 season (+31.4 against the run) where he firmly established himself not only amongst the elite defensive tackles in the NFL, but right at the top. But the Bills, outside of Williams, struggled against the run last year – likely why they selected Marcel Dareus No. 2 overall in the draft in April. They’ll surely be expecting big things of Dareus, particularly with being next to Williams, sooner rather than later.
Despite the Monday Night win by Oakland in Denver, the ability to run the ball was nothing to write home about, with none of their starting offensive linemen scoring a positive grade as a run blocker.
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3) Limiting Steve Johnson
Steve Johnson had another good game last week, averaging 16.5 yards a catch, scoring a touchdown and perhaps most impressively had no drops. He’s the Bills No. 1 target so who will Oakland trust to cover Johnson this week? Well Stanford Routt played almost exclusively as the left cornerback last week, with Chris M. Johnson playing most of the plays on the right side. Provided that stays the same, and Johnson is used the same way this week, it’s likely that we’ll see a matchup of the Johnsons the majority of the time which may not be good news for Raiders fans. Chris Johnson allowed completions on five of the six balls thrown his way, while Routt only allowed one of four. Regardless, Steve Johnson is the man that Oakland must contain this week.
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