The Oakland Raiders have already had issues in figuring out how to survive in the post Nnamdi Asomugha era. It was assumed that the Raiders might have some issues with their secondary this season and that assumption became a reality in the second half of their week two game against the Buffalo Bills as Chris Johnson had one of the worst games of his career trying to cover Stevie Johnson of the Bills.
Well, things may have gone from bad to worse to epic levels of despair this week. Both Chris Johnson and Demarcus Van Dyke sat out of Wednesday's practice with injuries sustained in last week's game. It appears as though Johnson aggravated a groin injury that caused him to miss part of the preseason. Van Dyke, a rookie taken by the Raiders in an attempt to help make up for the loss of Nnamdi Asomugha, suffered a leg contusion against the Bills.
If both of these players miss the game on Sunday, the Raiders will play the Jets with only two true cornerbacks on their roster, Stanford Routt and Joe Porter. Now that is truly scary.
With Jerome Boyd playing well this season, the Raiders have been able to use their safeties in many of their nickel formations. If the Raiders are without two of their cornerbacks, they will be forced to play back up safeties Boyd (who also is nursing an injury) and Matt Girodano much more often in order to free up Huff to play some corner.
With news coming out this week that Raiders owner Al Davis made a personal pitch to Jets corner Antonio Cromartie during the off season, it begs the question, if the Raiders knew they needed help at the cornerback position, why on earth did they start the season with only five cornerbacks on the roster, two of which are rookies?