Quick hits: Notes, analysis of Raiders week 6 loss to Chiefs

Chiefs coming off bye Week

• Not an excuse, but just want to say that Bye Week does have an impact and should be recognized, even if it does not absolve the loss.
• Allows for increased preparation time.
• Allows for increased scouting time, time to look more closely at tendencies and weaknesses and design plays to attack
• Especially for veteran offense, allows increased installation and gameplanning
• Extra practice allows for more reps
• This time may allow for preparing plays that are not in "Last 4" game vids that Non-Bye week teams use during Limited Prep (Normal) week.
• Allows for players to refresh and get healthy
• Injury report recovery are most obvious on paper, but on field is when players seem a bit "fresher" and a bit more powerful
• Teams coming off bye should be playing faster, both because of prep time and because of fresh legs.
• Rematch should be more interesting

Offense

Good start but...

• Great first drive for TD. Looked like it would be another exciting day
• Had some solid START of drives, where the offense looked good, but..
• lots of mistakes, miscues, and execution problems
• Could not overcome these mistakes

Did Wet Ball bother Derek Carr?

• Had a number of inaccurate throws this game.
• Interception may partly be blamed on wet ball. It wastes a nice stutter-and-go by Crabtree.

• It's the type of play that DC makes often where he doesn't set his feet and fades away. He actually has room to step up if he chooses/trusts Gabe.

• Throw to Seth on 3rd-and-5 was behind him.
• If that throw is out in front, Seth gets to the outside and a first down.
• If Seth knew it was 4-down territory, he may have settled for making the catch and being tackled short, but seems like he thought drop was the same as catching short of 1st down.

• Throw to Amari on slant at end of 1st half was low and behind and forces diving catch. Could have been nice catch and run big play. (Ultimately may not have made much different b/c of Clive Walford's play)

Derek was Inconsistent

• Started off uncharacteristically solid on opening drive
• Still gets a bit rattled / hyper / excited at times and rushes things.
• Sometimes seemed to rush even when he didn't need to
• Does not seem to trust his OL against KC; seemed to fade away often
• Part of the growing process

Wet field

• Crabtree seemed to have some trouble with footing
• DeAndre was unable to cut as hard as he'd like

Austin Howard did not look good.

• He looks hurt
• I think he was not healthy and was gutting it out there because there were no options.
• OL was doing enough for Derek on the day though

Amari had a big day and addressed areas of criticism

• 2 toe drags
• 2 slants caught, one of which was similar to the slant he dropped last year v Chiefs
• When KC covered Amari in 2nd half, looked like Crabtree had some single coverage opportunities downfield. Derek didn't see? or a little gunshy from earlier int?

Inconsistent, boom-or-bust running

• 5 rushes for 1 or fewer yards
• 9 rushes for 5 or more yards
• Thought conditions may have been good for Jamize to get some carries
• Hard to be consistent when mistakes are short-circuiting drives

Marcus Peters went out

• And the other DBs stepped up
• Ron Parker made a great play on the fade to Crabtree
• DJ White had a pass breakup on Amari

Big moments in the 1st half :

• Drive 2 : Interception on wide open Crabtree
• Drive 3 : Holding on KO during DC scramble, followed by DC fumbling the shotgun snap setting up 2nd-and-24
• Drive 4 : Incompletion on 3rd down to Seth, followed by miscommunication incompletion to Seth on 4th down
• The offense had their opportunities in the 1st half, but could not finish

Last Drive of the first half

• Jack Del Rio fighting for extra seconds on the clock
• Then Clive getting yards and then giving himself up to conserve time
• Spike of the ball with 0:01 remaining for Janikowski's 46 yarder
• Definitely thought it was going to be a big momentum swing drive (sad face)

In the 3rd quarter :

• 3 possessions
• 11 plays
• 32 yards
• 1 first down
• Two 3-and-out drives
• 3 punts.
• 0 points

Had a chance

• Down 26-10 with 9:51 remaining, OFF had one last chance
• Drove 8 plays and 55 yards
• Resulted in fumble when Derek Carr scrambled
• Apropos for the day, really

Diff in Halves

• First half felt like OFF was making mistakes and not converting
• Second half felt like KC's DEF was just confusing / beating the OFF.

Defense/KC Off

KC Offense was able to confuse Raiders' defense.

• Get Raiders' defenders out of position often. The big 45 yard run came when Bruce Irvin jumped inside. Looked like he saw something to give him a false read. If he stays outside, he's very good at taking on blockers and would have given the defense a chance.
• At first, it appeared that they just ran the same play over and over again. On reflection, they were running lots of different plays that were giving false reads to the front.
• Lots of pre-snap motion and sometimes just little action had the defense scrambling.

• Misdirection action was taking advantage of young players: Jet sweep action, Bunch WR fake action, True Option, Read Option, Reverse Pivot handoff.
• Pin and Pull runs, Power Plays, Inside Zone, Fake Inside zone and pull guards
• Andy Reid et al had the Defense totally set up for whatever they wanted. eg., QB Boot to TE in the flat and then later, QB boot throw back to RB.
• Had the defense well-scouted
• Perry Riley and Cory James were successful last week attacking on first look, but this time, that first step was often putting them out of position
• Used the play the Titans were successful with and gave a nice variation of it.
• KC blockers dominating Raiders' 2nd level
• Were able to get Safety or Corner Force and then get TE or Linemen matched up to defeat the force.
• Quite a bit of 13 and 22 Personnel.
• Defense did not look prepared for that at all, looked like they game-prepped a different offense
• 11 Personnel run plays were able to attack Denico as well as cause confusion with WR motion
• Overall, KC had the Defense totally confused and were dictating terms. Here, they motion to get Mack on WR Albert Wilson. And it looks planned as if they recognized the defense and forced the mismatch.

Eric Fisher looking good (unfortunately)

• Played like a former #1 overall pick. Looks big, long, strong and athletic getting to the 2nd level. Very good in pass pro and in run blocking
• Engulfed Cory James on a regular basis.
• Destroyed Denico a few times, partially b/c of slanting, partially b/c Fisher looks really strong
• Gave up a sack to Mack on nice Stab + Swim
• But otherwise played very strong Pass Pro

Travis Kelce excellent

• Blocked Karl Joseph a few times and welcomed him to the NFL
• Was reliable in pass game also.
• Excelled in run blocking and made a big difference
• Was excellent blocking on double teams

Entire OL for KC looks very good and very cohesive

Tough game for Karl

• It's all part of the learning process, but teams are now going to test him in this manner.
• We saw him man cover Tall TEs on slants (Kelce 6'5", Demetrius Harris 6'7") and he had a hard time matching up; also did not have underneath help from LBs as you'd hope
• Mentally KC had him confused at times and played against his aggressiveness
• Was overpowered by TE blockers

Raiders' interior DL

• did some nice things, but KC OL looked fresher than OAK DL
• Denico was shoved around a bit
• Lots of line-slanting the wrong way. KC had it scouted out or was giving false reads to the defense.
• Stacy McGee did some nice things

Spencer Ware splits :

• first half : 8/24, 3.0
• second half : 16/107, 6.7 avg. inlcuding 1 for 45.
• other than the 45 yarder : 15/62, 4.1
• Note : Jamaal Charles first half : 6/33, 5.5

Of 37 run plays (incl the lateral TD to Dontari Poe) :

• 8 rushes of under 2 yards
• 11 rushes of more than 5 yards, incl 3 double digits (10, 17, 45)
• 21 plays gained >50% of yards needed for 1st down
• 11 plays gained 1st down or more
• 9 plays gained >25% of yards needed for 1st down

Alex Smith picked apart the defense.

• Was easily able to throw into holes of zone
• Receivers were open on Man
• Lots of off-coverage and easy pitch-and-catch
• Smith was content to take short completions and was very accurate and no drops

Mack lost his footing often on pass rush

• As field got worse, Mack had more trouble with outside rush. Field conditions effectively removed his Dip move.
• Also slipped sometimes on key Speed-to-Power move
• Not an excuse b/c Fisher looks very good, but seemed to have a bit of an effect on Mack

KC Tackles in pass protection :

• played from position of power
• Played Inside out
• Took away the inside and forced Rushers to the outside
• No inside presence allowed Alex Smith to step up.
• Smith was able to quick pass so Tackles did not need to hold up very long
• Also, interior protection was very strong, giving Alex nice pocket

Field Position was a killer early

• In the first half, KC Offense had 4 drives
• All 4 drives started at their 31 or better
• 2 touchdown drives were 57 and 58 yards, ie., started at KC 43 and KC 42 yardlines.
• Both drives longer than 60 yards were scoreless
• Allowed 13 points, though 4 points were "gifted" by missed kicks

Three Phase Fail

In Week 4 BAL game, Raiders 1st TD was a 3-Phase TD (ie., all three phases contributed to the TD) :

• S/T Punt downed at BAL 5
• DEF holds BAL to 1 yard and 3-and-out and punt from BAL 6
• S/T returns punt to BAL 6 for Net 0 punt
• Derek Carr throws TD to Seth Roberts

In Week 6 v KC, the beginning of the 3rd Quarter was a 3-Phase Fail. All three phases contributed to the team going for 13-10 to 23-10.

• DEF allows KC opening drive to go 75 yards for TD
• OFF responds with 3-and-out on 8 yards gained
• S/T punts 58 yards but allows 50 yard return to OAK 41 + Illegal Formation Penalty for another 5 to OAK 36
• DEF allows 32 yards and FG
• OFF responds with 3-and-out on 5 yards gained

Moving on

Lots of tough circumstances make a challenged team look even worse than it is.

The defense is NOT good, but I do not think it is as bad as it showed. Also, I would not place too much emphasis on Mario Edwards making the difference. He will help, but problems require everyone on defense to function well / together.

We'll know more in the next 2 games, but I don't think it really is time to be too reactionary over this loss.

I continue to believe that there is some improvement even if there were also a number of steps backwards this week. The Learning Process sometimes takes some hard lessons.