ALAMEDA -- Stefen Wisniewski said it's going to be "super-important" for the Raiders to establish more of a running game Sunday at Miami than they did in their season opener against the Chargers, when they recorded just 45 rushing yards -- including a negative total in the second half.
"We really kind of build our offense around being able to run the ball, then come play-action and pass off of that," Wisniewski said. "If you get rid of the run you become one-dimensional, and that's what kind of happened in the second half last game. We were just throwing the ball all the time and that's not what we want to do. We want to be balanced."
It looks like Wisniewski himself will be able to help with that. Wisniewski will likely start at center Sunday against the Miami Dolphins, head coach Dennis Allen said today, after performing well with the first-team offense in practice this week and appearing recovered from the calf injury that caused him to miss the last three weeks of the preseason. Wisniewski was active for the opener Monday night but didn't play.
"We'll probably go with Wiz," Allen said. "He's back healthy and he executed this week in practice. So I think he's prepared and ready to go."
Allen said he was also waiting to see how Alex Parsons responded to a shoulder injury he has battled this week. Parsons, the Raiders' starting center in their opener, is listed as questionable for Sunday's game.
Wisniewski said he felt healthy last week but was on board with the coaches' decision to hold him out while he got up to speed with the offense. Aside from the first two weeks of training camp - before the Aug. 13 calf injury - he hasn't had much practice time and is still honing "a lot of little things," such as making line calls and jelling with his guards in blocking schemes.
-- Matt Kawahara
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