The Las Vegas Raiders have an open competition at cornerback during training camp, as the coaching staff is looking for the young players on the depth chart to step up and earn a roster spot. In the preseason opener against the Seattle Seahawks, Kyu Blu Kelly was the corner who rose to the occasion.
According to Pro Football Focus, Kelly was the Raiders’ second-highest graded defender (83.6), and that mark was good enough to finish tied for 10th among cornerbacks league-wide. The primary reason for this
is that he was targeted twice and allowed just one completion for five yards, picking up a defensive stop and two pass breakups (one via a target to another defender) in the process.
The third-year pro, who is on the bubble, made a strong case to make the 53-man roster last Thursday. So, let’s check out the tape and break down his performance.
This first play isn’t going to make the highlight reel as the Seahawks gain about seven to eight yards after the missed tackle by Greedy Vance Jr. (No. 41). But Kelly does a good job of preventing a bad play from being worse by making the tackle short of the sticks and preventing the first down, or more.
He’s on the Cover 4 side of the Cover 6 call for the Raiders, and Seattle has a good play design to defeat the coverage. The seam route from the slot receiver keeps Vance in the middle of the field initially, and then the China (short in) route from the outside receiver occupies Vance more and essentially serves as a screen for the running back on the swing route.
Granted, Vance does a good job of getting to the right spot, but he doesn’t finish the play. Luckily, Kelly recognizes the route concept, sees that no receivers are coming into his area and rallies to the football to help his teammate.
Again, the offense still gets the “win” here. But Kelly’s efforts give the defense a chance to get off the field by getting stops on second and third down.
Here, we’ll get another example of the Stanford product covering for a teammate.
Las Vegas is in Cover 3 while Seattle runs a slant-flat concept at the top of the screen. That means the linebacker (No. 42, Matt Jones) is responsible for taking away the slant route from the outside receiver. Jones does a decent job initially, forcing quarterback Drew Lock to hold onto the ball and scramble. However, the linebacker vacates his area on the scramble drill, leaving the wide receiver wide open in the middle of the field.
Now, Kelly can do a better job of continuing to work for depth as the deep third defender, but that ends up being a moot point because he sees the open man and converges on the receiver. To finish, the cornerback has a perfectly timed hit with enough force to jar the ball loose at the catch point, resulting in an incompletion and putting the offense in third and long, rather than picking up the first down.
This time, we’ll get a look at one of the two instances where Kelly was targeted in coverage.
It’s first and 20, and the Raiders run a three-deep, three-under fire zone where they blitz the nickelback. That puts the corners in off coverage, and Kelly does a good job of back pedalling and using leverage steps to stay on top of his man and keep the receiver inside of him.
Once the wideout breaks on the curl route, the cornerback drives on it and closes right after the catch while making a great open-field tackle. That prevents any yards after the catch and limits the gain to about four yards, resulting in a defensive stop while keeping the offense well behind the sticks.
We’ll wrap up with the second target and arguably the best play of the veteran’s night.
Las Vegas is in Cover 3, but Kelly is on the single-receiver side of a three-by-one formation from Seattle, which means he’s in man coverage and one-on-one with the outside receiver. Clearly, that’s a matchup rookie quarterback Jalen Milroe wants to target as Milroe snaps his head around and throws to the wideout on the boundary.
However, Kelly manages to stay on top of the route while being cognizant of where the first-down marker is, putting him in a position to drive on the comeback route. He nearly gets the interception, but at least manages to come up with the PBU to force a punt and get the defense off the field.
Overall, that was a pretty impressive showing by Kelly last Thursday night. If he can string together another strong performance Saturday against the San Francisco 49ers, he might solidify himself on the Raiders’ 53-man roster.
