NFL playoffs About two weeks ago, a first-round playoff matchup between the and would have been viewed as an offense-defense battle that would likely turn on whether the Texans could contain and the Raiders' pa sing attack enough for newly installed starting quarterback to simply manage the ballgame and get to a victory. Now, though, Carr and Savage are both injured, and the game suddenly looks a whole lot different. Who: Oakland Raiders (12-4) at Houston Texans (9-7) When: Saturday, January 7, 4:35 p.m. EST (CBS) Where: Reliant Stadium, Houston Latest line: The Texans are 3.5-point favorites, according to While Carr and Savage won't factor in, the game still seems likely to hinge on the matchup of the Harrison Bader Jersey offense and the Houston defense. Instead of Carr and his weapons against Houston's secondary, though, the key to the Raiders coming away with a win lies in the trenches.Raiders' line knows how to protect the pa ser They didn't get quite as much attention as their counterparts in Dallas, but the Raiders' offensive line had an excellent season in their own right. The group of , , , , and (for the most part) was downright dominant, especially when pa s-blocking. Oakland yielded just 18 sacks all season, fewest in the NFL. Even adjusted for down, distance, and quality of opponent, as in the case of Football Outsiders' Adjusted Sack Rate, the Raiders allowed the fewest quarterback takedowns of any team in the league. Carr had an excellent run before he went down for the season with a broken fibula, but he was helped greatly by facing le s pre sure than any other Tyler O'Neill Jersey quarterback in football. According to tracking from Pro Football Focus, Carr was pre sured on only 23.9 percent of his dropbacks, considerably below the league average, which hovered between 32 and 35 percent for most of the season. Considering his 33.7-point drop-off in pa ser rating on throws when he was under pre sure from those when his pocket was kept clean, it's a good thing for Oakland that the line held up so well, so often. Cook to make first career start in the playoffs On Saturday, it will be even more important for them to do so. is making the first start of his career, and he's doing so in enemy territory, in the playoffs. It's difficult to imagine a tougher environment for a player to make his starting debut. Younger quarterbacks are typically more adversely affected by pre sure than their more experienced counterparts -- especially when that pre sure comes via the blitz. It will be imperative for the Raiders to keep rushers away from Cook and give him a clean pocket from which to throw. If he's well-protected, he'll be better able to spot , , and his other weapons down the field; and they, in turn, will have more time to shake free from Houston's excellent secondary. The task of keeping Cook clean will be made more difficult if Penn doesn't suit up. He sat out practice on both Wednesday and Thursday with a knee injury, so that's a distinct po sibility. The Texans like to blitz, and do it wellEven if Penn is in uniform, keeping Houston's rushers at bay is easier said than done. The Texans ranked in the NFL's top five in both blitz rate and pre sure rate this season, per PFF. That pre sure didn't always result in sacks (they finished the year with 31 Trevor Rosenthal Jersey sacks and a league-average Adjusted Sack Rate), but defensive minds anywhere will tell you that having an effect on the quarterback's throws matters just as much as actually taking him down. None of them is quite as the level of , but , , and are all tough to handle in their own right. Where the offensive line may be even more important, though, is in the running game. Given Cook's inexperience, leaning more on the talents of , , and to control the ball and put Cook into more advantageous situations on third downs is a wise shift in strategy. Houston's defense is better against the pa s than the run (fifth in Football Outsiders' pa s defense DVOA compared to 17th in run defense DVOA) to begin with, and is particularly ineffective at stuffing runs at or behind the line of scrimmage. The Texans stopped opposing running backs for no gain or a lo s on only 17 percent of the carries they faced, which ranked 23rd in the league. Any positive yards on early downs are better than none, and will help take some pre sure off Cook's shoulders by putting him in better position to succeed. Establishing the run game with Murray The Oakland running game didn't exactly see much succe s in the final week of the season against the (15 carries for 57 yards, 20 of which came on one run by Washington), but that's almost to be expected with the Raiders going down 17-0 in the first half and the team A) playing in its first Ozzie Smith Jersey game without Carr; and B) having to weather another quarterback change due to injury. Using the run to extend the clock and keep things close early on so Cook can work himself into a rhythm is a good way to ensure things don't get out of hand early again. (Houston's inept offense will presumably also help on that front.) The strength of the offensive line as a whole is in pa s blocking, but the middle of the line can really maul. Osemele, in particular, is one of the very best run-blockers in the league, and Hudson has been road-grading opposing defensive tackles for years. The Raiders totaled 519 yards on 101 carries when running to either side Carlos Martinez Jersey of Hudson (i.e., between Hudson and Osemele or between Hudson and Jackson) and 340 yards on 67 carries when running between Osemele and Jackson. Those are huge per-carry numbers that can help put the Oakland offense in better positions, if they can find a way to have a similar level of succe s against a box that will presumably be more stacked than the ones the Raiders faced with Carr under center. There's been a lot of talk all season about offensive lines and how much they help the skill players find succe s. That will have to be something that shows up in spades for Oakland if they want to advance beyond the first round.