A week off helped cure the Oakland Raiders offensive woes even with Amari Cooper

and Marshawn Lynch not around.The defense still is plagued by all the problems that have been evident all season and a major reason why the Raiders are such a big disappointment in Jon Gruden's first year back as coach.The Raiders (1-6) allowed Marlon Mack and the Colts to run for 222 yards http://www.coltsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-denico-autry-jersey , gave up three touchdown passes from Andrew Luck to his trio of tight ends and failed to generate a sack or takeaway in a 42-28 loss that came after what players and coaches felt was the best week of practice for the defense all season."Well it just wasn't good enough," Gruden said Monday. "I'm not going to sit up here and say much more. We have to do a better job collectively. Getting off blocks, staying in the right gap and making physical tackles and knocking them backward. Those areas, it's hard to practice live. It's hard to practice against the exact look you're going to see at full speed, as you know. But we are practicing well. We are practicing hard."The results just aren't there. The Raiders have allowed their most points (218) through seven games since 1961 and rank third worst in the league in third-down defense (49.4 percent), second worst in scoring defense (31.1 ppg), last in run defense (144.7 ypg) and last in sacks (seven).Oakland even made several changes in personnel with defensive backs Gareon Conley, Karl Joseph and Nick Nelson; and linebackers Jason Cabinda, Kyle Wilber and Nicholas Morrow all getting their most extensive playing time of the season as searches for answers.But that didn't help at all as the Raiders allowed 42 points for the second straight game at the Coliseum."We're looking for more consistency. We're looking for somebody to step up, not only on game day but during the week," Gruden said. "We're still working through who are the best corners, who is the best combination for us in every situation. Hopefully we can settle on it soon."The one positive to take away from the game was the performance of the offense in a week after the team traded Cooper and placed Lynch on injured reserve, knocking out the No. 1 receiver and lead running back.Playing behind a healthier offensive line that provided much more time than it did the previous game in London on Oct. 14 against Seattle, Derek Carr had perhaps his best game yet under Gruden.Carr threw three touchdown passes Skai Moore Jersey , ran for a fourth score, completed 17 straight passes at one point and perhaps most importantly, committed no turnovers for just the second time this season."I think we've tried to be creative. I think anyone will tell you that the injuries on the offensive line, multiple injuries at left guard, right tackle, can stymie you, it can make things tough on everyone," Gruden said."An 11-hour flight can make things doubly hard. I'm not going to say anything other than yesterday we had a good rhythm, we were able to finish some drives. I think Derek Carr showed you what kind of quarterback he is when he gets legitimate pass protection and gets some balance. That was exciting."The offense got a boost in the running game with Doug Martin playing his best game yet in place of Lynch. Martin ran for 72 yards on 13 carries and caught two passes for 17 yards in his most prolific game since 2016.But Martin also lost a key fumble in the fourth quarter with Oakland trailing by seven, sealing another loss."He's a good player," Gruden said. "He had the fumble. Obviously, that will be remembered by a lot of people and rightfully so. But, what a performance he had yesterday. He picked up a couple blitzes. He ran with authority. He can catch the ball. He has a great stiff-arm, still. He still has a lot of life in his legs."NOTES: Gruden is hopeful LG Kelechi Osemele could return from a knee injury this week. ... OL Backup OL T.J. Clemmings will go on IR soon with a season-ending knee injury. ... DT Eddie Vanderdoes could return this week from a major knee injury in last year's season finale.The good Authentic Anthony Walker Jersey , the bad, and the Glowinski from the Colts’ first preseason game The Colts’ are finally back playing football. Now it’s not really meaningful football but it is football nonetheless. The main goal of preseason isn’t too light up the scoreboard or dominate opponents (although it would be nice) but to escape the games injury free and have some roster bubble guys prove their worth while the starters shake off the off-season rust. There was a lot of good in the Colts 19-17 win Thursday night along with a lot of bad. There was also quite a bit of ugly last night as well (looking at you Mark Glowinski). So without further ado lets jump into the Good, the Bad, and the Glowinski of last night’s preseason match-up:The GoodYes this is not a drill, the savior at QB, the neck beard himself is back playing in a football game. How hard has it been listening to National media this offseason harping on how “Andrew Luck will never play again” or how he hasn’t thrown a ball in 180 days or whatever they would say? Luck came out last night and proved to all the doubters that he’s coming to play this season. The highlight of the game for Luck wasn’t a dazzling deep bomb or a rifle over the middle but when he immediately popped up after a hit by Seattle’s LB Bobby Wagner in the first quarter. While we all held our breath as he took that hit, Luck jumped up with a big smile on his face. He’s back everybody.The depth at defensive line looked impressive. Now the starters are a completely different story as Russell Wilson was moving the ball with ease when he was in the game but the 2nd and 3rd string defensive lineman were really getting some pressure in the second half. Anchored by strong play from veteran John Simon who looks surprisingly comfortable in his new 4-3 end position and Hassan Ridgeway who was all over the place last night, the reserves on the line were constantly creating pressure. That will be a huge plus for the Colts this year if they can have a good rotation up front that can create pressure especially coming off of a season where almost all of the pressure was created solely by Jabaal Sheard. They got the win. Why does this matter, it’s just the preseason? Well for starters, they actually took a lead into the fourth quarter and were able to hold onto it. That has to be another sigh of relief for Colts fans who watched last year’s team turn 9 halftime leads into a measly 4 win season. Although the offense was very vanilla and has yet to really put in any real wrinkles that we’ll see in the regular season, it was nice seeing the team move the ball and get the win. It also has to be a big morale boost for the players who were on last years team to come away with a win.Other players who stood out to me/who I want to see more of: RBs Jordan Wilkins and Marlon Mack, WRs KJ Brent and Kasen Williams, LBs Skai Moore and Matthew Adams, OL Joe Haeg and Quenton Nelson Youth Kenny Moore Jersey , CB Nate Hairston. The BadAlthough the team did come away with the win, the first team defense wasn’t really a reason why. The lack of corner talent was evident from the word go as Seattle’s receivers were effortlessly getting open. The starters along the defensive line struggled to get any pressure or contain Russell Wilson. The linebackers were missing tackles. Outside of a couple of bright spots like Skai Moore rotating in and Nate Hairston’s nice interception, the defense looks like it has a ways to go. Obviously we don’t want to overreact to a preseason game but we knew going into this year that the defense was a work in progress. Still though, hopefully we see some improvement in second preseason game. Some rookies had their fair share of struggles. I don’t really want to harp too much on this as they are rookies getting acclimated to the NFL game but some of them definitely struggled last night. Nyheim Hines had a rough night returning punts as he muffed two in the fourth quarter along with having another fumble being saved by the refs calling his forward progress stopped. 2nd round guard Braden Smith had some trouble last night in pass protection. Seahawks rookie Rasheem Green blew past him in the 3rd quarter for an easy sack. WRs Deon Cain and Daurice Fountain didn’t necessarily hurt themselves with poor play but both not being on the field last night paved the way for guys like KJ Brent and Kasen Williams to look pretty good. Overall though, these rookies will get better. This was their first game and we should all expect improvement going forward. Some other players who had poor games/who I don’t want to see more of: S Shamarko Thomas, RB Christine Michael, OT J’Marcus Webb, LB Antonio MorrisonThe GlowinskiNow obviously after last night’s game I have to name this category this way for the rest of the season. Right? I’ll leave that up to you all in the comments but that QB/Center exchange between 4th string Quarterback Brad Kaaya and 3rd string Center Mark Glowinski was pinnacle preseason football. In three consecutive snaps in the fourth quarter, the two could not figure out how to successfully get the ball into the quarterback’s hands. The third and final snap in this laughable series of events saw a ball sail past Kaaya’s hands which led to a mad scramble around the goal line and a touchdown for Seattle’s defensive tackle Joey Ivie. It was so bad that Joe Haeg, who started the game at tackle, had to finish the game at center so the offense could actually run a play. So yeah, that was some ugly right there. Honorable mention to Shamarko Thomas and that ejection deserving hit though. What the heck was he doing on that play? Just a boneheaded mistake by him.