Thursday Night Football features the Battle of the Bay as the Oakland Raiders (1-6) visit the neighboring San Francisco 49ers (1-7) in a clash of two struggling and disappointing teams.
The 49ers are on a six-game losing streak and mired in a season that quickly went downhill after starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo suffered a season-ending torn ACL injury in Week 3.
The Raiders are on a three-game skid and have already given up on this season as indicated by their trade of star wide receiver Amari Cooper to the Dallas Cowboys for a first-round pick in next year’s draft.
The 49ers will be starting their third quarterback this season as their backup quarterback C.J. Beathard will be relegated to the bench with a wrist injury. Nick Mullens will instead get the starting nod.
Mullens is a former undrafted free agent that has never appeared in a regular-season game. In college, he played for Southern Mississippi’s, where he finished as the all-time passing leader with 11,994 yards, 87 touchdowns and 46 interceptions.
For the Raiders things aren’t looking much brighter at the quarterback spot even though they still have their regular starter, Derek Carr, intact.
Carr has faced a lot of criticism this season, especially in recent weeks, but he had perhaps his best performance of the year last week’s 42-28 loss to the Indianapolis Colts. Although it wasn’t nearly enough to get a win, he completed 21 of 28 passes as he passed for 244 yards and three touchdowns. He also added the first rushing touchdown of his career on a quarterback sneak.
The Raiders main problem this season, however, is not their offense but their defense. In fact, that will be their main obstacle to beating the 49ers in Santa Clara. Their lackluster defense puts too much pressure on the offense to score often and they’re simply not that good to keep up.
Last week was a clear example of that as even with Carr’s big effort they could not keep up with Indianapolis as their defense surrendered over 40 points.
Even though these two teams have bad offenses, their defenses are even worse as they’re among the worst of the league in points allowed per game. The Raiders are the second worst in the NFL allowing 31.14 points per game, while the Niners are ranked 28th averaging 29.5 points per contest.
Even though these teams are quite incompetent from an offensive standpoint, expect this game to feature plenty of scoring as their defenses are quite incompetent.
In this match of mediocre defenses, the Niners have the best group against the run (ranked 6th in the league); while the Raiders are better against the pass (ranked 11th), which might prove crucial in a match featuring an opposing quarterback that has never played a regular season game in the NFL.
Although it’s hard to predict the winner, it’s quite obvious that the over is the best choice in this match.
Prediction: Before the injury to Beathard we expected the 49ers to win 27-20, but now that Mullens will be under center it’s just too close to call.
