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Broncos give Raiders a Royal beating

Sep 9, 2008 - 7:12 AM OAKLAND, California (Ticker) -- The Oakland Raiders were hoping for a coming-out party by a rookie in the season opener. It just wasn't from the rookie they expected.

Jay Cutler threw for 299 yards and two touchdowns, including one to rookie wide receiver Eddie Royal, as the Broncos breezed to a 41-14 victory over the Oakland Raiders on Monday night.

Royal made a spectacular debut with nine receptions for 146 yards and a touchdown as coach Mike Shanahan improved to 21-6 all-time against the team that once fired him.

"I'm really proud of our football team," Shanahan said. "We played well offensively, defensively and special teams. I'm also proud of the coaches. To play the way we played today, on the road, first game of the year is a good start and hopefully we can build on it.

"I got a lot of confidence in Eddie, I don't look at him as a rookie. He's been doing it very consistently in practice and that's why he got the opportunity to do it in the game."

Rookie running back Darren McFadden, the fourth overall pick of the Raiders, finished with 46 yards on nine carries before heading to the locker room in the second half with a shoulder stinger. It is not considered serious but he will be re-evaluated on Tuesday.

Quarterback JaMarcus Russell, the No. 1 overall pick in 2007, struggled in his second career start. Although he posted decent numbers, completing 17-of-26 passes for 180 yards and two touchdowns, Russell had a costly fumble inside Denver's 10-yard line on Oakland's first possession and the Raiders never seemed to recover.

"I thought the quarterback played well and that's hard to imagine in a blowout like that and say the guy played well, but I thought there were some plays that the guys could have made and he would have had a really good night," Raiders coach Lane Kiffin said of Russell.

The Broncos (1-0), and Royal in particular, set the tone on the opening drive of the game, marching 76 yards in 10 plays en route to scoring the first 27 points.

With No. 1 receiver Brandon Marshall serving a one-game suspension for violating the league's personal conduct policy, Royal quickly became the focal point of the offense.

"Our game plan was to attack," Royal said. "We knew we had a lot of weapons on this offense and the coaches drew up a great game plan and we just wanted to come out and keep the pressure on them."

The former Virginia Tech standout had two rushes for nine yards and a 16-yard catch to set up his 26-yard scoring reception for a 7-0 lead just over five minutes into the contest.

Cutler, who finished 16-of-24, hit tight end Tony Scheffler on a 72-yard catch and run to set up Matt Prater's 26-yard field goal for a 10-0 lead.

Royal had three receptions for 32 yards on the Broncos' next possession, which Michael Pittman capped off with a 3-yard run for a 17-0 lead with 3:12 left in the first half.

"This just opens up a lot of possibilities for us," Cutler said. "We anticipated B-Marsh (Marshall) getting a lot of double coverage and you can't now because Eddie's on the other side and he'll present a lot of problems if you want to go one-on-one."

Making Royal's night even more impressive was that it came against cornerback DeAngelo Hall, who was acquired from the Atlanta Falcons to shore up the secondary. The rookie had seven receptions for 99 yards in the first half alone.

"We didn't out-scheme them," Cutler said. "Eddie Royal beat DeAngelo Hall, time after time after time. That's what happened."

"You dream about it and you hope you can come out and play this well but the main thing is that we won," Royal said. "I got some opportunities and I tried to make the most of them."

The Broncos then put the game out of reach on their opening possession of the second half. Cutler connected with Royal for 29 yards before finding Darrell Jackson along the left sideline for a 48-yard scoring pass and a 24-0 lead.

"I am extremely disappointed with the outcome," Kiffin said. "We like to be a physical and disciplined team and I thought we showed a lack of discipline. We have to find a way to fix that.

"We didn't tackle very well or cover very well either."

The Raiders (0-1) broke up the shutout when Russell tossed an 8-yard TD pass to Ashley Lelie early in the final quarter.

"We had a chance to make some plays and as you can see we didn't connect," Russell said. "We just need to stay away from third-and-longs and we will be OK.

"The feeling that we had today as a whole is not a good feeling. We don't want that feeling anymore so that's one thing we can take away."

Selvin Young and Pittman added late rushing touchdowns for Denver.