Already without starting quarterback Derek Carr for Saturday’s wild-card round game against the Texans, the Raiders will also have to get by without their best offensive lineman. Left tackle Donald Penn will miss the game with a knee injury, reports Scott Bair of CSNBayArea.com.
The remarkably durable Penn, who tweeted that he’s “in tears,” suffered the injury in Week 17 and will now sit out for the first time in his 10-year career. Dating back to his rookie year in 2007, Penn had made 161 consecutive appearances, including one playoff game with the Buccaneers. This past regular season marked Penn’s ninth straight 16-start campaign. The 33-year-old was his usual effective self in 2016, ranking as Pro Football Focus’ 11th-best tackle.
Without Penn, the Raiders will move Menelik Watson to left tackle and use Austin Howard on the right. It’ll be up to Watson, who made five starts during the regular season, to protect neophyte signal-caller Connor Cook‘s blind side.
Unbelievable! Raiders put Penn back in the Denver game after coming out with a knee injury. The game was already lost and now he can’t play in the playoff game. What kind of BOZO coaches make that kind of a decision!
The Raiders just need to realize that they will be lucky to advance in this years playoff but they are built for the future, they need to move on from an old Reggie Nelson and get some picks for him while they still can and then draft a FS and get a slot receiver in round 2 like Smith Shuster from USC and the one position that they should focus on during FA is a LT and maybe another CB but they could also go through the draft to get one too