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#Raiders’ Jon Gruden trying to avoid another Jets surprise

“#Raiders’ Jon Gruden trying to avoid another Jets surprise”

The Jets caught the Raiders by surprise last year, beating them 34-3 to send their season into a tailspin.

Jon Gruden is ready to make sure it doesn’t happen again this Sunday.

“I don’t think I need to say much,” the Raiders coach said Wednesday on a conference call. “All you do is turn the film on, they got after us in all phases. I got a lot of respect for their coaching staff. [Defensive coordinator] Gregg Williams and [Adam] Gase have given us problems before. I don’t need to say much else.”

Last year’s win over the Raiders was part of the Jets’ second-half resurgence, with Sam Darnold throwing for 315 yards and two touchdowns and running for another score — the kind of offense that has been sorely missing this year. Gruden pointed to the injuries and lack of continuity on offense hurting the Jets this season, but said he knows what Darnold is capable of.

“We compare the Jets to what we saw last year, they got after us pretty good,” Gruden said. “We got a lot of respect for them.”

The 6-5 Raiders will enter MetLife Stadium having just been served a wake-up call by the Falcons in a 43-6 loss.

Robby Anderson celebrates with fans during the Jets’ 34-3 win over the Raiders in 2019.

The surprise benching of Alex Lewis against the Dolphins is carrying over into this week. The left guard did not practice Wednesday, but Gase still wasn’t willing to divulge what the non-injury issue was or predict whether he would be active against the Raiders.

“I don’t have an update on kind of where we’re at on that quite yet,” Gase said.

Gase did say Lewis was still participating in meetings.

RT George Fant (knee/ankle) did not practice Wednesday after sitting out all of last week.

“I think he’s gonna try to do some stuff with strength and conditioning to kind of see where he’s at,” Gase said.

LB Blake Cashman (hamstring), who played 12 snaps on special teams Sunday after missing the last three games, also did not practice. OL Pat Elflein (shoulder), OL Connor McGovern (elbow) and WR Breshad Perriman (shoulder) were limited.

Gase didn’t sound optimistic that safety Bradley McDougald, who has been on injured reserve since Oct. 31 with a shoulder injury, would play again this year.

“I don’t see him coming back anytime soon,” he said.

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