It’s time to flush the Las Vegas Raiders’ exciting win in the season opener and move on to a huge early-season AFC West matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday Night Football! But first, let’s get to this week’s mailbag.
A: In my opinion, Pete Carroll and Patrick Graham should absolutely try something/someone else other than Darnay Holmes at nickel moving forward. That spot was one of my big concerns this summer (Mike Hilton, still available, just sayin’!), and Holmes was the reason why.
Last year, he was waived by the New York Giants at the end of training camp and wasn’t good when the Raiders had him fill in for Nate Hobbs, so I don’t know what the front office was thinking by rolling with Holmes as the primary nickelback this season.
The problem is that there aren’t many other options on the roster. Maybe Kyu Blu Kelly slides inside while Darien Porter or Decamerion Richardson comes off the bench to fill in on the boundary, but Kelly is the defense’s best outside cornerback right now.
Besides bringing in a free agent like Hilton, the next best option would be to activate Greedy Vance from the practice squad. I don’t think that will happen this week, but if Holmes doesn’t pick it up soon, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Vance get called up at some point in the season.
Q: How much motion did Chip Kelly use against the Patriots? And any RPOs?
A: Kelly used pre-snap motion quite a bit, and I consulted my good friend and co-worker Marcus Johnson to get some numbers, shoutout Marcus!
Excluding kneel downs, the Raiders used motion on 54 percent of their total snaps and 51 percent of dropbacks. So, over half of their plays. They only had two RPOs, but used play-action on 32.5 percent of Geno Smith’s dropbacks, which was the seventh-most in the NFL for Week 1, per Pro Football Focus.
Since I know this gets mixed up often, here’s an explanation of the difference between RPOs and play action in case anyone needs it.
R-P-O stands for run-pass option, meaning the offensive line and running back are executing a run play while the wide receivers run routes for a pass play, and the quarterback decides to either hand the ball off or throw it based on what the defense is doing. Play action is a pass play no matter what; it just includes a run fake.
If you’re ever confused about a play being an RPO or play-action pass, watch the offensive line. If the linemen are run blocking and working up to the linebackers, it’s an RPO because they’re executing a run play. But if they’re making a conscious effort to stay behind the line of scrimmage, it’s a play-action pass. Also, you’ll never see a deep throw on an RPO since the linemen are working downfield. It’s almost always a quick game concept so that the quarterback gets the ball out before a lineman can get flagged for being an ineligible man downfield.
A: Better and more experienced quarterbacks, typically, will be able to carve up defenses that rely heavily on blitzing. So, it’s not a sustainable model.
The Raiders are going to need someone like Malcolm Koonce to step up and take some of the pressure off Maxx Crosby moving forward. I know Koonce had a sack in Week 1, but that was his only high-quality rush in my opinion. The good news is that Thomas Booker IV and Adam Butler were able to get some pressure from the interior last week, but I do agree that the pass rush as a whole needs to improve.
I’ll also be interested to see if Pete Carroll and Patrick Graham use a lot more simulated pressures, where they show a blitz pre-snap but only rush four and have defenders who were lined up on the line of scrimmage drop in coverage. That’s still not a great option against quarterbacks who are good/quick processors post-snap, but it’s better than just running a standard blitz over and over again.
Q: I can understand moving Jordan Meredith to center, but why have Dylan Parnam and Jackson Powers-Johnson switch guard positions when they both played pretty well last year?
A: That’s been one of my questions too, and I don’t believe there has been a definitive answer for it. Historically, Parham has been better on the right side, even going back to his college days, and Powers-Johnson was at left guard when he wasn’t playing center last season. If I had to guess, it has to do with Alex Cappa.
Cappa has played right guard for literally every snap of his career, nearly 7,000 snaps according to Pro Football Focus. So, when he was signed, the plan was to have him at right guard and Parham at left, while Meredith and Powers-Johnson battle it out at center.
Then, Cappa gets injured in training camp and the coaching staff didn’t want Parham to switch back after getting reps in the spring and summer on the left side, especially since Cappa’s injury wasn’t season-ending. As a result, they put JPJ at right guard, and he ended up winning the starting job since Cappa missed a lot of time in camp. Also, if JPJ gets injured or loses the job, it’s easier to just plug Cappa in without having to ask Parham to change positions again.
Q: Is DJ Glaze’s poor outing a result of him not improving, or could it be the new O-line coach – Pete’s son? And does Joe Philbin still have input? I was pretty shocked by how poorly Glaze and Powers-Johnson played.
A: I don’t think one game is going to give you the answer to this question. Glaze certainly didn’t play well and still has lingering issues in pass protection. But the entire offensive line had a bad game, so Brennan Carroll certainly shoulders some of the blame, too.
If the entire unit continues to struggle throughout the season, that points to a coaching issue. And if say three or four linemen start playing better but one or two continue to struggle, then it’s on the player(s).
I was also shocked by how poorly the two second-year pros played, but it’s still early in the season for them to turn it around. There are going to be some growing pains with a couple of young guys who are learning their second NFL offense and a new position for Powers-Johnson. Let’s see if they can have bounce-back performances on Monday night.
On Philbin, he definitely has input. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a point in keeping around, given all the other coaching changes this offseason. But how much of a say he has, that I don’t know. It is Brennan Carroll’s position group, so he is going to have final say on all matters related to the offensive line. However, I think he’s smart enough to lean on the advice from someone who has decades of NFL coaching experience.
A: The offensive line as a whole was bad, including Powers-Johnson. I don’t understand and can’t agree with anyone who tries to say otherwise. That doesn’t mean it’s time to give up on him or anything like that, but it’s okay to say that he had a bad game.
As for Jeanty, he definitely needs to be more patient. He and Carroll said that during their press conferences this week. It’s weird because he showed plenty of patience in the backfield at Boise State, but that was his biggest issue in Week 1. So there’s reason to believe Jeanty will get that fixed moving forward, and part of me wonders if he was just over-eager in his first real NFL game.
Q: Any explanation for why Raheem Mostert was benched?
A: Pete Carroll didn’t shine any light on why Mostert was a healthy scratch last Sunday. I have a couple of theories that we’ll get more information on as the weeks go on.
Dylan Laube has a pretty big role on special teams as a kick returner, and he’s on the kickoff coverage and punt return teams. So, the RB2 job could be a week-to-week deal that depends on the matchup when it comes to who is active between Zamir White and Mostert. If the offensive game plan is to run between the tackles more often, which it was in New England, then White gets the nod. And vice versa for when the perimeter run game is going to be the point of emphasis.
My other theory is that the coaching staff wants to save Mostert for the second half of the season. The 33-year-old battled injuries last year and was banged up in training camp, and the team would rather have him be 100 percent down the stretch than at the beginning of the year. On a related note, the staff could have just been playing it cautious in Week 1 since Mostert was coming off an injury and missed time during camp.
Typically, teams only have three active running backs on gameday, so who is in street clothes this week will give us a better idea of what the plan is.
A: This theory will be tested this week, where the defense could be better than most people (myself included) expected heading into the season if they can keep Justin Herbert and the Chargers in check. But I will say that it was pretty clear that Graham knew what to expect from Josh McDaniels. Graham had a few play calls that were perfect for what McDaniels was running, and having a predictable offense was one of McDaniels’ many problems.
I don’t mean for that to take away from how the defense played last week; I was pleasantly surprised with their performance. However, this game will be a bigger test.
That’ll do it for this week’s mailbag. Thank you all for submitting questions and, as your weekly reminder, if you’d like to have your questions answered in a future column, tweet them at me, @MHolder95, email them to SBPQuestions1@gmail.com or look for our weekly call for questions on the site. The latter will continue to publish on Thursdays.
