The Las Vegas Raiders will look to get their first win of the 2022 season on Sunday when they host the Arizona Cardinals led by quarterback Kyler Murray. Like Josh McDaniels’ team, the Cardinals were on the losing end of their Week 1 matchup with an AFC West team, so both sides will be anxious to turn things around.
For the Raiders, that means containing the extremely talented Murray, who can beat you in so many ways. This is not lost on McDaniels, who spoke to the dangers of facing off with the young quarterback in his Wednesday press conference, via Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk:
“Every play is an opportunity for something bad to happen when Kyler is on the other side,” McDaniels said in his Wednesday press conference. “This guy is a special, special player, and there’s not many players in the league that are like him and certainly not many that I’ve coached against.”
In terms of exactly what Murray brings to the table, McDaniels expounded on the skills of the Cardinals signal-caller:
“First of all, I think the number one thing I would say about him is he’s a really good passer. He can read the defense, he can get the ball to all levels of the field, he can make every throw, he’s very accurate. So that in its own is a tough challenge. Then you combine that with his ability to either run the ball on designed runs or RPOs or zone read, and then every pass play could potentially be a loose play. So, he forces you to be absolutely on top of all your P’s and Q’s, and you can’t take plays off and can’t relax because if you do, generally he makes you pay for it.”
It is that dual-threat that makes Murray so dangerous, and the Raiders’ defense will have to be firing on all cylinders to keep him contained. Last week Justin Herbert picked the Raiders’ defense apart as they were unable to get consistent pressure and did not register a sack on the day.
Murray is obviously a very different style of quarterback from Herbert with his running ability, so every level of the defense will have to be on point. The Cardinals also possess one of the game’s best deep threats in Hollywood Brown, further highlighting the importance of staying focused.
Neither the Raiders nor Cardinals want to start the season 0-2, and Josh McDaniels understands that in order to avoid that, the Raiders have to hold Murray in check.
Raiders’ DaVante Adams remains optimistic after Week 1 loss
One of the main positives from Week 1 was receiver Davante Adams who was everything he was talked up to be, finishing with 10 catches for 141 yards and a touchdown. And despite the loss, Adams remains positive on his Raiders.
“I look at it as something that’s encouraging because we beat ourselves today,” said Adams. “That’s not to take anything away from that team over there, because that’s a really good team, they did a lot of good things today, but you turn the ball over the way that we did today and you still have the opportunity to go down and win says a lot about you as a team, fighting through adversity and still our defense did it in the second half, we just got to find a way to take care of the ball a little bit better and go down there and win.”
“So, I look at it as something we can feed off of moving forward and try to keep it as positive as possible.”
