Derek Carr's passing chart for Raiders week two win over Ravens

Against Cincinnati in Week 1, Derek Carr only lasted about 1 1/2 quarters until he went out with a hand injury. Carr's passing charts for that day were sparse and so it was difficult to reach any real conclusions from that, but the one thing that stuck out was that the throws were all short. It was frustrating watching it live in the game and even moreso in charting aftewards.

Thankfully, Week 2 was a night-and-day difference.

What was an inept offensive attack against the Bengals was tranformed into an offensive juggernaut against the Ravens; the Men in Silver and Black were driving up and down the field all day, punting only twice and driving 80+ yards for each of their 4 touchdowns.

The offense relied mostly on the passing attack; this meant the game rested on Carr's right arm and he was up to the challenge. This week he played the entire game and had an outlandish 50 throws, completing 30 of them for 351 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Here's a look at Derek Carr's Week 2 passing charts, a much more pleasant experience than in Week 1.

Stats :

30 / 46 (65%), 351 yards (11.7 yards per comp), 1 sack, 3 TDs, 1 Int, 100.9 rating

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By Result

In the chart, target distance is how where the receiver was when he received the ball or where he was when the ball was thrown to him (on incompletions). In other words, this chart shows how deep the throws were and does not include any run-after-catch yardage.

The Red Circles indicate Touchdown Passes and the Yellow Blocks note the Defensive Penalties.

The bulk of the passes were still short throws with a large scattering of targets in the sub-10 yard range. Fortunately, those are almost all completions. Of 26 throws of under 10 yards, only 6 incompletions, a 79% completion rate.

17 throws were in the intermediate range of 10-20 yards.

So while Carr was throwing short often, he was not exclusively short; he was also attacking the intermediate range. Unfortunately, though, Carr and the Raiders had little success in the intermediate range.

Of those 17 throws in the 10-20 yard range, Carr completed only 4, a 24% completion rate.

The most exciting aspect of the chart--and what many fans were clamoring for after the Week 1 blowout--is the number of deep, downfield throws. Derek Carr certainly has the arm strength to push the ball downfield and on Sunday, he had a chance to show it.

7 times Derek Carr took downfield shots beyond 20 yards. And he was successful on 5 of them! 2 touchdowns, 2 penalties, 1 completion. Unfortunately, one of his deep throws resulted in his lone interception of the day. Downfield throws are inherently low percentage plays but DC managed an 82% success rate (75% completion rate).

The target distribution was

• 52% short
• 34% intermediate
• 14% deep

That's about as good a distribution as you could hope for, especially for throwing the ball 50 times.

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By Target

This chart indicates that the downfield targets were exclusively WRs.

There are a handful of targets that could potentially be downfield seam routes, one of which is to the TE (on the right) that drew a penalty. That's the pentultimate play of the Raiders' gamewinning drive to Mychal Rivera. With Rivera--and hopefully Walford--these routes may eventually prove to be very useful, but for now, it is an underused aspect of the offense.

There's a nice scattering of middle of the field targets to WRs and TEs that extends down to around 17-18 yards downfield. The middle of the field is a dangerous place and it's often where the TEs roam and where slot receivers have to maneuver. 8 WRs targets between the hashses or very close to them; that seems to show that Andre Holmes, Michael Crabtree, and maybe Seth Roberts are brave/tough enough to make a living there.

Alternately, we know that the Ravens blitzed often to make up for difficulties in pass rush. This can often leave the middle of the field open, so these mid-field targets may be indicative of Carr's blitz recognition.

The lone RB target in the middle looks like a dumpoff.

6 clear WR screen targets. Those show up as outside targets around the LOS or behind it. 4 RB targets in the same area may indicate RB lined up in a WR position and then running a screen; Taiwan Jones ran this at least once.

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Aggregate Data

Here are some tables with (hopefull) interesting data that is either not included in the above charts or may not be easily discernible.

General

Snap to Pass is length of time from when the Center snaps the ball to when QB releases the ball.

General	Avg	Median
Snap to Pass	2.6	2.5
Depth of Throw	10.1	8.5
Run after catch	5.2	3.0

Target Depth

How far downfield the receiver was when making the catch; on incompletions, where the receiver was when the ball was thrown to him.

Target Depth	Count	%
5 yds and under	22	44%
At or Behind LOS	8	16%
>5	28	56%
>10	21	42%
>20	7	14%

Side of Field

Target Side	Count	%
L	19	38%
R	31	62%

Pass Result

note : The Comp row does NOT include the Com (TD) row.

RAC stands for Run After Catch (yardage)

Pass Result	Num	Snap To Pass	Depth	RAC	Left	Right
Comp	27	2.3	4.7	4.2	9	18
Comp (TD)	3	2.4	22.3	14.0	1	2
Inc	19	2.9	14.8	-	8	11
Int	1	2.8	29.0	-	1	0
Total	50	2.6	10.1	5.2	19	31

Receiver Position

Receiver Position	Num	Snap to Pass	Depth
RB	7	2.9	3.9
WR	34	2.4	12.4
TE	9	3.0	6.3
Total	50	2.6	10.1

# Pass Rushers

Some info on what happened when the Ravens brought extra rushers.

Note : The 2 man pass rush looked like it was supposed to be a 3-man pressure, but confusion caused both interior linemen to drop.

5 and 6 man pressures are obviously blitzes, but sometimes a 4 man pressure can also be a blitz with a DL dropping an offside LB blitzing (Zone Dog).

#	# Plays	Snap To Pass	Depth
2	1	1.5	13.0
3	14	2.5	13.0
4	26	2.6	9.9
5	8	2.8	4.9
6	1	2.5	14.0

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Finale

It was a good day.

Raiders won in dramatic fashion and while the defense looked like a mess, the offense took up the challenge and won the game. The running game was just effective enough to help out while Derek Carr and his receivers put on quite a show. AC / DC made its first appearance (of many) and Michael Crabtree came out as if he had something to prove and may have won over a legion of Raiders' fans.

As with Week 1's chart, it's still too early to make any definitive judgments. Carr is going to have ups and downs and the charts will reflect that. As the season wears on and as more and more data piles up, we'll be able to start talking more clearly about trends, patterns, and concerns. But for now, it's looking nice.

On to Cleveland.