It has been well-documented just how incompetent the Raiders were at covering the tight end through the first month of the season. Last week they made a change in their defensive lineup that considerably improved how they performed against the tight end.
What they did was put Neiron Ball in the lineup at outside linebacker and move Malcolm Smith to middle linebacker. It was the addition of Ball and his coverage abilities combined with the removal of Curtis Lofton and his complete lack of coverage abilities that did the trick.