Familiar face ready to haunt Raiders in Cleveland

The Raiders won’t have to search far for film when studying Cleveland’s blocking schemes in preparation for one of the league’s top rushing attacks. There should be plenty of footage at the team facility.

The Browns are averaging 157 yards per game on the ground, good for third in the league.

New coach Kevin Stefanski’s run-heavy system is a major reason for that success, and the Raiders saw him and his rushing attack last year when he was Minnesota’s offensive coordinator. The Vikings rushed for 211 yards in a 34-14 win.

A less obvious factor in what the Browns have done on the ground is the hiring of former Raiders head coach Bill Callahan as the offensive line coach.

“It’s the running game,” Raiders coach Jon Gruden said of what makes the Browns’ offense difficult to prepare for this season. “Bill Callahan is a great line coach. … When they get the running game going, (Baker Mayfield) is really hard to stop because of the play-action passes and the bootlegs.”

Callahan has quickly turned around a unit that placed in the bottom 10 of Pro Football Focus’s run blocking grades last season.

The Browns are third in adjusted line yards this season, according to Football Outsiders.

Here are three keys to watch for as the Raiders travel to Cleveland to play the Browns at 10 a.m. Sunday.

Exorcise the demons

The Raiders have been haunted by poor defensive performances all season.

After the game against the Buccaneers got completely out of hand in the fourth quarter last week, Gruden promised big changes.

Gruden and embattled defensive coordinator Paul Guenther have been coy about what that entails other than to reveal extensive meetings about fixing the porous defense.

Those adjustments will be put to the test against the Browns.

Guenther said the unit has been good at times, but needs to find a way to maintain that level of play for a full 60 minutes.

“I’d say I think we are doing some good things in the running game, but we’ve got to eliminate some of the explosive plays that hurt us last week,” he said. “I just think consistency … is what we got to continue to work on.”

The Raiders are 26th in the league in total yards allowed per game and middle of the pack against the run. They give up 32.8 points per game, better than only the historically bad Cowboys at 34.7.

Run for your life

While the Raiders’ passing game has soared to new heights this season, the run game has come to a screeching halt at times.

The passing offense is ranked in the top 10 and the team is scoring 28.5 points per game, good for 11th just behind the Browns (28.6).

Overall, the Raiders and their star running back Josh Jacobs have produced pedestrian results. The run game was nearly nonexistent in the loss to the Bucs. Derek Carr was the leading rusher with 19 yards until Jalen Richard passed him in mop-up duty on the final drive.

Part of the problem was a lack of cohesion on an offensive line that was missing two starters and wasn’t able to practice together all week due to COVID-19 protocols.

Still, the Raiders need better results.

“Well, we always mention continuity up front,” offensive coordinator Greg Olson said. “That’s a big part of it – getting our five guys together. … We think Derek does a great job getting us out of bad plays and in the right plays, so it’s an evolving process and we’ll just continue to try to get better.”

Spooky weather

The Raiders could be in store for their first game with adverse weather conditions this season.

Forecasts call for temperatures in the 40s with a 60 percent chance of rain.

There is also a possibility of gusts of more than 50 miles per hour, with sustained winds of more than 30 mph.

Olson said the Raiders dedicated practice time this week to preparing for the elements.

“We spent a number of periods with what we call wet ball, where we have the managers, the guys that are spotting the ball, squirting water on the football,” he said. “We had our wide receivers and quarterbacks wearing their wet-weather gloves.”

Olson said the the players were able to hold onto the wet ball. The Raiders will need that to carry that over into the game.

Cleveland leads the league with 14 forced turnovers.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.