It is a make or break season for Raiders head coach Dennis Allen and his staff, who have gone 4-12 in their first two seasons in Oakland and must show improvement in 2014 to stay. You would think that sort of pressure would make a man edgy, but whatever reason, Allen doesn’t seem worried about it.
All through camp and preseason, Allen dismissed worries about pass rush deficiency and offensive line issues because the games did not count.
Sunday against the Jets, however, the game did count- and the concerns became much more valid and pressing. The Raiders continued to have trouble getting to the opposing quarterback and the running game was stagnant.
The offensive game plan, especially, looked overly conservative, with Carr rarely throwing down field and the offense instead trying to rely on short passes which became less and less effective as the game went on.
To start the game, Carr was mostly effective, going 7 for 7 for 53 yards in early going. Carr also got an early touchdown, throwing to Rod Streater, who spun and took the ball into the end zone to give the Raiders an early 7-3 lead.
After the touchdown, which was achieved in large part because an interception gave the offense a short field, the Raiders were scarcely able to get a first down until late in the 4th quarter. That was, in large part due to ineffective play calling by Olson. The offensive line didn’t help matters, being totally dominated in the running game.
There were some good signs amidst the negative, of course. The Raiders were penalized an extremely low 4 times for only 20 yards. If they can continue to play disciplined football, it will help them a lot over the course of the game.
Also, the team won the turnover battle by intercepting Geno Smith once and getting another turnover when they forced Smith to fumble almost at their own goal line. The Raiders did not turn over the ball in the game, although Carr threw two near interceptions including one pass that was right to Jets’ rookie safety Calvin Pryor.
Still, every team has close calls week in and week out and it’s a positive that the Raiders were able to get more turnovers than the other team.
Speaking of Carr, in his first start he was a predictable rookie mix of positive and negative. He was good, initially, throwing a lot of shorter passes and screens. When the Jets adjusted to take those away, though, Carr and the defense struggled immensely.
At times, Carr showed good presence and was able to climb the pocket and step up to let the pass rush go behind him. He also threw the ball away a few times instead of taking the sack, which is good. On the negative, he was inaccurate on a number of passes, which didn’t help his already-struggling receivers, and as the game progressed he had a tendency to hold onto the ball too long – which was at least partially due to lack of separation by his wide receivers – and he took too many hits and sacks because of it.
The Raiders coaching staff did little to help Carr, however. The game plan was flat, vanilla, especially on offense where offensive coordinator Greg Olson seemed to be playing more to benched QB Matt Schaub’s strengths than to Carr’s.
The Raiders barely let the rookie QB throw deep at all, instead having him throw behind the line of scrimmage or within 10 yards to complete short passes. These worked early on but as the defense became accustomed to the throws, they adjusted to cover those routes and the Raiders didn’t take many shots downfield.
Another questionable move by the coaching staff was to give Denarius Moore the start over veteran James Jones. Jones has been, in my opinion, the most steady wide receiver throughout both training camp and preseason games.
While Jones is not a true number one receiver, he runs good routes, understands how to play the position well and, as he showed on Sunday, is a very gifted athlete. He also possesses the best set of hands on the team, which any quarterback should appreciate.
This is not entirely Moore’s fault, but he was targeted a team-high 8 times in the game. His stat line at the end: 2 receptions for 8 yards. Moore is better as the teams’ slot receiver coming off the bench, at this point, than as a starter outside. I’d much prefer James Jones as the starter, there.
Speaking of not using personnel correctly – it is not a coincidence, I don’t think, that the Raiders were able to move the ball much more in the first and last drives because that is when the Raiders made use of two of their better weapons: Marcel Reece and Mychal Rivera.
Reece was a non-factor in the passing game, statistically, but using him helped open things up. Any time a team can spread out the ball and show the defense a number of different looks and weapons, it causes that much more concern and confusion for the defense.
The Raiders would have had a much better chance in this game if they had continued to use Reece in the passing game – and not just on short routes out of the backfield. Last year versus the Jets, they had some success with Reece on crossing routes at a medium depth because he can out-physical cornerbacks and out-run linebackers. The game started well with two Reece targets in the first two drives, but Olson and Carr hardly looked Reece’s way, again, for the rest of the game.
The use (or, in this case, non-use) of Mychal Rivera was even more puzzling. Prior to the last drive of the game, only 1 pass was attempted to Rivera. It’s almost unbelievable to say that, but it’s true.
On the final drive for the Raiders, the only drive in which the Raiders offense was able to get past the center of the field and come away with some points of their own accord, Carr targeted Rivera 4 times and was successful throwing to him, coming away with 3 completions to Rivera for 31 yards in that drive. Those were to be Rivera’s only completions in the game.
If you told me before the game that the Raiders ran only 15 times and had a rookie QB throw 32 times, that of the 32 passes only a couple would be more than 15 yards long, and that they took James Jones, Marcel Reece, and Mychal Rivera almost completely out of the pass game, I would predict a big loss – each of those are poor choices by the coaching staff.
With all of that going against them, it’s a wonder that the Raiders were in this game, at all.
The Raiders have a chance to shake off the poor choices from the Jets game and are focused on winning at home versus the Texans, this week, in Oakland at 1:25pm on Sunday. For my thoughts and analysis during the game, follow me on twitter @AsherMathews.
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