Raiders Week 6 snap counts vs Seahawks: Gareon Conley doesn’t see any defensive snaps against Seattle

If you thought it was ridiculous to see how few snaps CB Gareon Conley saw on defense last week, you are going to be irate this week. In a 27-3 blowout loss to the Seattle Seahawks Conley saw precisely zero defensive snaps, not even one. He only saw the field 3 times in the entire game, and they were all on special teams.

Earlier this week the coaching staff had commented that they consider Conley to still be a rookie after missing almost all of last season with injuries. They have now backed up that analysis by playing Conley on defense as much as they did 4th round rookie CB Nick Nelson in this game, which is to say not at all.

The thing is, even if Conley was a rookie it’s absurd to not let him play any defensive snaps in any game that he is healthy for. He was last year’s 1st round pick and he has not played so badly that he doesn’t deserve to be benched from the defense entirely. How is he supposed to get better if he can’t even see the field in this embarrassing of a loss?

He had company on the bench from his fellow starter from the opening weeks of the season too because Rashaan Melvin only played spot duty with taking just 7 defensive snaps as well. It doesn’t speak very highly of the opening season starters when by Week 6 they are both riding the pine like this.

Instead of Conley and Melvin playing it was Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Daryl Worley with DRC playing 86% of snaps and Worley playing 97%. Considering the outcome of the game it won’t be surprising to see those percentages start to even out at least a little bit. Hopefully that is the case anyway because now is the time to start playing the “rookie” Gareon Conley again, there’s nothing left to lose anymore in full blown rebuilding season.