The Oakland Raiders lost their best player, Nnamdi Asomugha, in free agency this past off season. Rather than making an attempt to re-sign the biggest free agent on the market, the Raiders decided to give Stanford Routtnumber one cornerback money, making it clear that Al Davis and the Raiders saw him as a potential star in their secondary.
Two weeks into the season and the Raiders secondary does not look good, but not due to the play of Stanford Routt. Last Sunday, his counterpart, Chris Johnson, struggled massively as the Bills' Stevie Johnson used and abused him the entire second half. The Raiders coaching staff have said that they expect other teams to follow the lead of what the Bills did in the second half by spreading out their offense and attacking the Raiders weakest point on defense, their secondary.
This could mean a long season for the Raiders if they cannot figure out a way to effectively stop opposing teams who attempt to spread out the Raiders defense, taking away their strong point in the front seven and putting pressure on the secondary. While this notion is perhaps a scary thought, if Routt can continue playing the way he has started the season, at least one thing will be certain, the Raiders were right in giving him such a large contract.
Albeit it is a small sample size, but through the first two weeks of the season, Stanford Routt leads the league in burn rate. Burn rate is a statistical category that measures the completion rate of passes against individual defenders. After two games, Stanford Routt has a league low burn rate of 28.6 percent. He has been targetted 14 times and has only surrendered four catches.
Those statistics are even more impressive when you compare them to some of the best corners in the league. Former Raider Nnamdi Asomugha has given up just one less reception but has done so on only 6 targets for a 50 percent burn rate. Darrelle Revis has also given up one less reception than Routt and has done so on 9 targets for a 33.3 percent burn rate.
Again, it is early and these numbers by no means stand for the proposition that Routt is in the same league as Asomugha and Revis, but if he can keep up this pace, there might start to be talk of Routt as being one of the better cornerbacks in the NFL.