Tale of the Tape: new Raiders safety Nate Allen

For my second 2015 Tale of the Tape, I wanted to review new free agent safety Nate Allen and get an idea what kind of player he was.

Unlike Rodney Hudson, Dan Williams or Curtis Lofton, Allen’s signing brought more scorn and derision than it did praise or hope. This made me curious because Pro Football Focus had him rated with a respectable-if-not-great +3.9, which was good enough to be the 28^th overall safety in the NFL last year.

Considering there are two starting safeties on each team, that puts him right about average in the NFL, maybe slightly above.

The first game I watched with week 3, Eagles versus Washington. I wanted to start with this one because it was his worst ranked game of the year, earning him a -3.9 grade for the game.

Of the 15 games he played in 2014, he earned 4 games with negative grades, 5 games with positive grades (over 1.0) and six games with neutral grades (0-1.0), according to PFF.

Watching the Washington game first definitely gave me an idea of his weaknesses, as he failed to make impact plays and was burned deep for a long TD and almost helped give up another TD on a screen pass. It was not a good game for him.

With the Eagles in 2014, Allen played almost exclusively on the defensive right side of the field or single high free safety.

Allen played opposite Malcolm Jenkins, who stood out as being the better safety when I was watching the games. PFF corroborated, rating Jenkins +8.3 on the year which was good enough for the 19^th overall in 2014 safety rankings.

Jenkins played close to the line many times but when he played back, he played the defensive left side of the field and Allen played the right side. In that arrangement, Jenkins would typically have the harder assignment as most quarterbacks are right handed and that means they tend to prefer throwing to the defensive left side of the field because throwing to the defense’s right means throwing across their body.

When Jenkins played down towards the line, Allen would frequently play 15-25 yards down field, serving as the last line of defense for go routes or players who broke free from their coverage. For the most part he played the single high safety position well.

Allen has decent speed for the position and he also possesses a good backpedal. This allows him to stay on top of the play and keep the action in front of him. When the action is in front of him, Allen does a good job of reading the play and reacting and he made some well-timed pass deflections as well as one INT (which was called back due to another player’s penalty) in the games I watched.

When he is in the thick of the play, however, he can lose perspective on what is happening and get lost. Versus Washington, he was part of a coverage breakdown on an 81 yard DeSean Jackson TD. During the play, which in all fairness was well designed, he was sucked down because his attention was drawn by a slot receiver coming up the seam and then running a deep cross in front of him.

Because of that, he didn’t see DeSean Jackson on a go route up the defensive right sideline. The result was the deep TD pass from Kirk Cousins to Jackson for an 81 yard TD because the Eagles’ CB had no help over top.

This play resulted directly from Allen’s struggles to maintain a clear view of what is happening when he is in the fray. Teams can use action in front of him to draw him down into coverage and then take advantage of single coverage on the outside.

During the Washington game, Allen was also partially responsible for a second big play, a 55 catch and run on a screen pass that was stopped by fellow safety Malcolm Jenkins near the goal line.

On the play, Allen was again playing single high safety and he saw the screen play develop and came up to help. Unfortunately, he took a bad angle and arrived behind the play, allowing the Washington player to leverage a hole behind blockers and make his way up field for the large gain.

Again, when in the fray, Allen wasn’t able to get himself in the correct position to make the play.

Despite the lack of impact plays in the two games I watched, it is not all doom and gloom for Nate Allen with the Raiders. Safety is one of the hardest positions to judge because the scheme and the other players in the secondary highly impact the production of the center.

Nate Allen has the size and speed to be able to cover the field from the free safety position, which will allow Charles Woodson to play a defined strong safety role. Allen has a lot of starting experience and will have seen a number of different formations and offensive styles in his five NFL seasons and he should provide a stabilizing force for the back of the Raiders’ secondary.

As long as Raiders’ head coach Jack Del Rio, defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr, and secondary coach Marcus Robertson are realistic about Allen’s strengths and weaknesses, they can find very productive ways to use him.

If they are not realistic about his weaknesses, however, they may put him in some poor positions, which will result in some large, frustrating gains for the opposing offense.

Unlike many of the other players signed this offseason, the Raiders also structured Allen’s contract in a more traditional manner. Instead of utilizing roster bonuses, as they did for Rodney Hudson and others, the Raiders used a signing bonus for Nate Allen. The $4 million signing bonus is spread evenly over the four years of his contract so even though it was paid up front, Allen will count for at least a $1 million against the cap in each year of his contract.

On the flip side, there is no guaranteed money in any season other than 2015 so if he is cut before the start of any season, the Raiders will take only a small cap hit and not be out any new money that year.

Here is a breakdown of Allen’s contract, courtesy of Spotrac: