I was not able to watch the Raiders game live due to a family medical emergency. Instead, watching the All-22 coaches film was my first time seeing this game – both on offense and defense.
For my thoughts on the offensive tape, you can click here.
-The defensive tape was harder to watch than the offensive tape. The defense looked as bad as any defense I’ve ever seen, which is why a team like Miami – who came into this week struggling and with a possible quarterback controversy brewing – was able to put up a whopping 38 points on the Raiders.
The Raiders had almost no redeeming qualities on defense, with the majority of the players looking much slower than their Miami counterparts.
In particular, the linebacker corps looked terrible, outside of first round pick Khalil Mack. The Raiders, already down starters Nick Roach (concussion) and Sio Moore (ankle) coming into the game, lost Kaluka Maiava to a hamstring injury early in the game, as well, and were left with Miles Burris and UDFA Bojay Filimoeatu as their Will and Mike linebackers, respectively, for the rest of the game.
Both Burris and Filimoeatu looked terrible throughout the game, especially Filimoeatu, who struggled to make the right reads for run support, couldn’t disengage from blockers, and was a liability in pass protection in both zone and man.
Here is a picture from the first quarter of the game in which both Burris and Filimoeatu get sucked forward by play action and are therefore not in their assigned areas for zone coverage. The Raiders could almost not leave the Dolphins’ receivers more open on this play and Tannehill was able to easily complete a pass to one of his open receivers:
It wasn’t much prettier in the run game as several times Filimoeatu took himself out of the play with a poor read, inexplicably going to the right side and leaving the middle of the field wide open for a long run by Miami:
At least Filimoeatu has a (very) little excuse is a rookie – and an undrafted one, at that. The only reason he was playing is because the Raiders were down 3 linebackers and he was almost an emergency player at the position.
Burris, on the other hand, should be much better than he is. He was a fourth round pick, which usually means he should be able to develop into a solid player. Not only that, he apparently showed the coaching staff enough earlier this summer that he was initially listed as the first team weakside linebacker over Sio Moore.
At this point in his career, however, Burris does not have the requisite speed to play in the NFL. He lacks explosion in both his initial step and cannot quickly change direction and, therefore, is frequently too late to be able to make a play.
-Khalil Mack had a solid, if unspectacular game, playing mostly right defensive end, as he has done in most games, recently. Ideally, Mack would be able to play more of a Joker role, lining up at different places in the formation and both blitzing or dropping into coverage as the scheme requires but always needing to be accounted for.
Unfortunately, he is relegated to right defensive end because he is, by far, the teams’ best pass rusher. He also has the necessary strength and explosion to be able to disengage from blockers and so he seals the edge well, for the most part, on the right side of the line.
Mack did not make any amazing plays during the week 4 game, but he is a disciplined player and he isn’t typically caught out of position or fooled into making a bad read. He is the teams’ best and most consistent player on defense – perhaps on the entire team.
-Opposite Mack, the Raiders are having a hard time at defensive end. Justin Tuck has been better in run support than LaMarr Woodley but neither have offered anything of note as a pass rusher.
Both Tuck and Woodley were beat on quarterback keeper plays, too, versus Miami as Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill ran 5 times for 35 yards in the game. Most of those runs were on plays in which he faked a handoff to the running back but kept the ball and rolled to his right. He did this at least twice against Tuck and at least once against Woodley.
Each time this play was called, the left defensive end – be it Tuck or Woodley – bit on the fake handoff and started to run behind the Miami offensive line for backside pursuit, which left the edge completely cleared of a defender and made it easy for Tannehill to run up the field to his right.
The first time this happened, it was frustrating but understandable. After that? The coaches and/or players failed to make the necessary changes. As they say, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” The Raiders continued to be fooled by the same play – shame on them.
As a side note, that phrase goes slightly different in Texas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFCH5MxZ-qM
-One underrated player on the Raiders defense is defensive tackle CJ Wilson, who had a very solid game. Wilson lined up mostly on the right side of the formation, next to Mack. Wilson showed good penetration and was able to disengage from his man to make a number of tackles for little to no gain.
In fact, Wilson ended the game with 5 total tackles, 4 of which were solo, which was good enough to be tied for second on the team. Wilson has earned more playing time and looks much better as a 3 technique DT than does Antonio Smith at this point.
-Much was made – and rightly so – about the Raiders completely failure to correctly cover Miami’s trips formations in the game. Three times during the game, Miami put 3 receivers in a bunch formation on one side of their alignment, only to have the Raiders fail to have an appropriate number of defenders.
In two of these plays, Miami was able to go for a long distance because there were not enough defending bodies to overwhelm the blockers. Miami’s first touchdown was a 13 yard pass out of a trip formation in which Mike Wallace was able to move up the field untouched because the Raiders had only 1 cornerback positioned to guard 3 defenders, although safety Usama Young did move closer to the formation right before the snap.
Again, this is a fool me once/twice situation. Mistakes happen, I understand – although this was a ridiculously big mistake. The first time it happened, that is likely on the players – whoever was supposed to align the defense needed to audible out of Carlos Rogers blitzing and have him back off to cover.
For the same mistake to happen two more times? That’s on the coaches and the players. Fool me three times? Shame on everybody.
The yardage on these trip formation plays would have been worse but for Carlos Rogers making a great play against two blockers.
Here is the alignment before the play. Rogers is the player that is lined up right in front of the trips formation with Tarell Brown covering over top.
At the snap, Rogers makes a good play to split the double team receivers and manages to get to the outside even with two guys against him. This forces the receiver to go in and around.
That gives Brown time to come down and make a tackle after 7 yards or so, which isn’t good but is better than the first two times the Raiders faced this alignment, at least.
-Speaking of cornerbacks, the Raiders have a lot of trouble at this position. Brown is the teams’ best cornerback in coverage but he isn’t anything special. He changes direction decently well, though, and can at least stay on or close to his man.
Brown is a liability in run support, however, and he was consistently blocked out of run plays to his side. I don’t think I saw him make a single play on a run – he doesn’t look to be trying.
Rogers is the opposite – he is very solid for the Raiders in run support. He will, at times, set the edge well and make a running back try to go back inside and Rogers also has made some good plays coming into the backfield on run plays, after he beat his man outside.
However, Rogers gives up a lot of passes because he doesn’t have good change of direction and loses his man on routes in which his man cuts quickly. Obviously this is not a good thing for a cornerback.
Rookie TJ Carrie is, I think, the best of the rest. Chimdi Chekwa looks lost and is not the best option in the nickel.
Carrie’s biggest issue is that he will give too much cushion to his man and allow some easy catches underneath but he has a good understanding of the position and has the change of direction skills to be able to play in man coverage. He should get more playing time as the season progresses.
At this point, Neiko Thorpe and Keith McGill are afterthoughts although Thorpe, at least, did see a few snaps last Sunday.
-The Raiders will hopefully get much more healthy after the bye week. They desperately need help at linebacker and may get their 3 starters on the field for the first time this season week 6 versus San Diego, as long as Nick Roach can (finally) come back from a concussion he suffered in pre-season and Sio Moore can get back on the field. Those two will likely make a big difference as they are huge upgrades.
Having Kaluka Maiava back from his hamstring would be helpful, too, as he has better speed to play backup than either Burris or Filimoeatu.
As early as week 7, the Raiders could get DJ Hayden back from the physically unable to perform list and the team needs him to be healthy and better this year.
There are a lot of issues on both offense and defense and the likelihood that the Raiders are able to make any noise this year is closer to none than it is to slim.
However, with some of their pieces back, at least the Raiders can try to be competitive and get their young players some valuable experience for next year.
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