Oakland Raiders Film Room: Week 6 (SD)
By Evan Ball
On the first page of this article Derek Carr’s late game interception was compared to the Colin Kaepernick game/season ending interceptions involving deep fade routes. That’s actually a completely unfair comparison. It should in fact be a contrast. In Kaepernick’s interceptions the passes were generally a little low, slightly under thrown, and thrown into unfavorable matchups. With this last throw by Derek Carr it’s the complete opposite. Oakland WR Brice Butler has a major height advantage over San Diego CB Jason Verrett (6’3″ vs 5’9″). Carr throws the ball high and outside, exactly where it should be. Add in the fact that the Raiders tall receivers were successfully using their height advantage over San Diego’s shorter DBs all game and there’s only one reasonable conclusion: this was a correct play call and throw to make.
There’s a reason the front page picture for this article is what it is. The ball is in Butler’s hands, well, through Butler’s hands. There’s simply no excuse for letting a DB with a six inch height disadvantage come down with that ball. All other X’s and O’s aside, look at the throw, look at the route, and look at the catch. Butler slows down when he looks back toward Carr for the throw and has to speed back up. He had Jason Verrett turned around and should have been able to position himself better to go up for the catch. Butler is young and should be able to improve on these skills, but the slowdown impacted the weak jump, and even then it went through his hands.
Credit: NFL Game Rewind
Credit: NFL Game Rewind