Raiders’ Run Defense Gets Its Hardest Test Yet: Bills, Cook and Allen at Allegiant on Sunday

LAS VEGAS

The Raiders' season splits cleanly in two, and Sunday will tell us which half was the truth. Las Vegas started 3-0, then lost two straight, and the manner of the losses is the concern: a defense that opened the year taking the ball away has spent two weeks getting run over. The worst possible visitor for that problem is the Buffalo Bills, who run the ball as well as any offense in football, and they come to Allegiant Stadium on Sunday, October 18, for a 1:25 p.m. PT kickoff. Raiders.com lists kickoff for Sunday, Oct. 18 at 1:25 p.m. PT at Allegiant Stadium, and Sportradar's schedule agrees, with the Week 6 game on CBS.

Buffalo arrives 4-1 and on a short week, having outlasted the Rams 37-34 in overtime on Monday night, according to Raiders.com's game preview. The Raiders, 3-2, are home for the first of two straight games at Allegiant. On paper it is a measuring-stick game. On the recent film, it is a run-defense examination the Raiders have been failing — and everybody in the building knows it.

Two weeks of getting run over

Athlon Sports laid out the slide in stark terms. Over the last two weeks, Athlon reported, Las Vegas has fielded the least efficient defense in the NFL, ranking 32nd in expected points added (EPA) on defense across Weeks 4 and 5 — and the run defense has been the roughest part of it. Kansas City averaged 7.3 yards per carry in its win over the Raiders, Athlon reported, with Kenneth Walker ripping off 177 yards in a Chiefs uniform. Then came New England: the Patriots ran for 165 yards, part of a 45-17 loss in which, according to Patriots Wire's reporting of the game, Drake Maye's offense piled up 536 yards and six touchdowns.

The low point produced the week's most quoted sentence. Maxx Crosby, the face of the Raiders' defense, admitted afterward that "we got our ass whooped" — a brief, blunt assessment Patriots Wire carried from the losing locker room. Crosby's honesty is really a scouting report: the Raiders' front has been moved off the ball, and Athlon added a second, quieter number that explains Sunday's danger — Las Vegas allows a league-high 2.59 yards before contact per rush, according to figures Athlon cited from Locked On Bills host Joe Marino, along with long runs on 16 percent of opponent attempts, the second-highest rate in the league.

The Bills bring the league's ground problem

Buffalo's rushing attack is built to punish exactly that weakness. Athlon reported the Bills rank top five in the NFL in rushing yards, rushing touchdowns and yards per carry, and fourth in EPA per play on running plays — a figure that does not even include Josh Allen's scrambling. Between James Cook and Allen, Athlon noted, Buffalo has the league's third-leading rusher and the quarterback with the most rushing yards at his position. Cook enters Week 6 with 532 rushing yards and five touchdowns on 95 carries, according to the numbers Athlon cited, and Raiders.com's preview put Allen's rushing total at 239 yards to lead all quarterbacks — including 121 yards on Monday night against the Rams, the second-highest single-game rushing total of his nine-year career.

The strategic logic follows from there. If Buffalo runs early and well, three things happen at once: the Bills control the clock against a defense that has been on the field too much, Allen stays ahead of the chains instead of dropping back into Crosby's rush — Raiders.com noted Crosby's 36 pressures are tied for third-most in the NFL — and Las Vegas is forced to crowd the box, opening the play-action game behind it. Athlon's Bills-side preview made precisely that case: Buffalo's offensive line can establish the game on the ground rather than asking Allen to repeatedly challenge the Raiders' pass rush. The counterweight, Athlon noted, is ball security — the Raiders piled up nine takeaways during their 3-0 start, and Raiders.com put the season total at ten takeaways, tied for the most in the NFL, even as Buffalo has committed nine giveaways over its last three games after a turnover-free start.

The good news: Jeanty and Bowers are full-go

If the Raiders are going to answer a rushing team, they will likely have to do it with their own two best offensive players — and Thursday's practice news was the best of the week on that front. Running back Ashton Jeanty, dealing with a foot issue, was a full participant in practice ahead of the Bills game, FanDuel Research reported, and ESPN reported Jeanty said he is feeling "great" and ready to go, with head coach Klint Kubiak adding that he is playing. Jeanty is coming off a quiet outing against New England — ten carries for 27 yards, plus three catches for 50 yards, per FanDuel Research's summary — but a healthy Jeanty is the Raiders' best argument for keeping Allen and Cook on the sideline.

Tight end Brock Bowers completed the same arc a day later. Bowers (knee) was limited at Wednesday's practice, FantasyPros reported, then practiced in full on Thursday, according to NBC Sports' player-news wire — a pattern NBC Sports noted the Raiders have followed in managing his reps early in weeks while he plays unrestricted on game day. The production explains the care: in the three games since returning, Bowers has caught 24 of 35 targets for 312 yards with a touchdown in all three, including eight catches for 110 yards and a score against New England, according to FPTrack's summary of his week. Against a Buffalo defense that will have to choose where to lean, a full-strength Bowers is the player most likely to make the Bills pay for loading up against Jeanty.

What decides it

Strip away the subplots and Sunday is a single question asked about thirty times: can the Raiders' front hold its ground on first and second down? If Cook is getting four yards before contact and Allen is choosing his moments, Buffalo's 32.8 points per game — tied for the league's highest mark, according to Raiders.com — will travel just fine to Las Vegas, and the Raiders' skid reaches three. If the front that powered the 3-0 start reappears, forces Buffalo into obvious passing downs and lets Crosby hunt, Las Vegas has the takeaway habit and the home field to make this a fourth-quarter game.

Either way, the Raiders will know what they are by Sunday evening. Kickoff is 1:25 p.m. PT Sunday at Allegiant Stadium on CBS. For the rest of the Week 6 picture, see Previously's NFL Week 6 Sunday preview and the Previously sports front.