The Raiders 2021 season ended a little over a week ago with their Wild Card loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. So, now it’s time to tally up the scores and name out Season Ballers and Season Busters.
Ballers
DE Maxx Crosby
Ten times, Crosby was named a Baller and five of those times he was Top Baller. He consistently got pressure on the quarterback, finishing the regular season with over 100 pressures (101). Then, as you might expect, he was a Baller one more time in the team’s playoff game. He finished with eight sacks, 30 QB hits and 13 tackles for loss.
WR Hunter Renfrow
Eight times Renfrow was a Baller and three of those times he was Top Baller. He started strong and ended strong being named a Baller for the first four games and the last two with a couple in-between. He finished with 103 catches for 1038 yards and nine touchdowns.
P AJ Cole
Six times Cole was a Baller. Though being the punter, he was never Top Baller, he consistently did his job at the highest level and earned the team’s only First-Team All-Pro nod because of it.
K Daniel Carlson
Seven times a Baller and twice a Buster. Carlson was clutch late in the season when the Raiders needed him most. The Raiders were playing some close games. From the start of the Raiders’ four-game win streak to end the season along with their Wild Card matchup in Cincinnati, he didn’t miss. And had he missed any of his field goals, the Raiders wouldn’t have made the playoffs.
DT Quinton Jefferson
Six times a Baller, twice a Top Baller. Jefferson was part of a rotation at the defensive tackle spot. He distinguished himself more and more as the season went on to be named a Baller three times in the team’s final four games including the Wild Card game.
RB Josh Jacobs
A Baller eight times this season, with seven of them coming down the stretch. That’s what we call a strong finish. And to think he did much of it while suffering from a rib injury.
LB Denzel Perryman
A Baller six times and a Top Baller once. For most of the season, he led the league in tackles. He was even among the league leaders despite missing two weeks to injury.
DE Yannick Ngakoue
Six times a Baller and once a Top Baller. Though he seemed to fade down the stretch, including being rendered invisible in the Wild Card loss to the Bengals, he still finished with a team-leading ten sacks and his presence on the left side helped keep opposing offense honest, leading to better pressure numbers across the line.
CB Nate Hobbs
Hobbs was a Baller four times this season, including being named Top Baller in the team’s Wild Card matchup. The fifth-round rookie came in immediately and solved the Raiders’ issue with finding a slot cornerback.
Honorable Mention
CB Casey Hayward — Though he just missed the cut as a Season Baller, he was a solid starter for the Raiders at outside corner. He was named a Baller four times and a Buster twice.
Busters
OL Alex Leatherwood
After being a Buster for all four games at right tackle to start the season — twice a Top Buster –, the first-round rookie was a Buster eight more times after moving right guard including sharing Top Buster status with some of his fellow linemen in the team’s Wild Card loss in Cincinnati.
RT Brandon Parker
When Leatherwood moved inside, Parker came in. And they both were Busters eight times over the final 14 games as well as sharing Top Buster status for the Wild Card game. In fact, Parker was Top Buster three times this season. How, after four seasons, Tom Cable keeps thinking Parker is going to turn the corner is madness.
CB Brandon Facyson
Facyson had a tough job coming in off the street to take over the starting job when Trayvon Mullen was lost to injury. And in the first half of the season, he looked pretty good. It was that home stretch where the luster started to wear off and he was a Buster six times, twice a Top Buster.
DE Clelin Ferrell
Ferrell was a Buster twice this season. It may have been more if it weren’t for how little he saw the field. He’s just utterly ineffective, offering little as either a pass rusher or a run stopper. Rookie third-round pick Malcolm Koonce didn’t even see the field until late in the season, appearing in five games. And he finished with more sacks (2.0) and tackles for loss (two) than former fourth overall pick Ferrell (1.5 and one) did in 15 games.
C Andre James
Five times James was a Buster including twice a Top Buster. He showed some flashes of athleticism in downfield blocking, but no sure signs he can be the team’s long-term answer at center.
LB Cory Littleton
Early in the season, it looked like Littleton might start to live up to his free-agent contract under new DC Gus Bradley. But it didn’t last. He was a Buster three times starting in week 12 and by midway through the team’s 48-9 loss to the Chiefs in Week 15, Littleton was benched in favor of rookie Divine Deablo. The move seemed to signal an upgrade in the play of the defense.
HC Jon Gruden
To be clear, this isn’t about his emails. It wouldn’t be in keeping with Ballers & Busters if I made up new rules for things that happened before or after the games were played. When Gruden was forced to resign after week five, he had already been a Buster three times, including a Top Buster twice.
Then the team won two straight following his exit. And unlike the previous three seasons under Gruden, the Raiders finished strong to make the playoffs. Instead of fading away to miss them. That seems like pretty good proof Gruden was a big part of the problem.
WR Henry Ruggs
As for on-field play, Ruggs was great. He was really coming into his own. But if you’re looking at the team’s successes and failures this season no singular event affected them more than when Ruggs decided to get in his car drunk that night. Allegedly traveling at speeds of up to 156 miles per hour, resulting in a fiery crash that killed a young woman and her dog.
Ruggs ended two lives and destroyed his own. He also landed a gut punch to his teammates, who had to grapple with their emotions as well as the team now being without a major part of how it was functioning at a high level.
