Gareon Conley is the best player on the Oakland Raiders

The Oakland Raiders got a standout performance from cornerback Gareon Conley this season, and he could be the best player on the team.

Gareon Conley is the best player on the Oakland Raiders. A lot of people might not agree with me right now, but after this article, you will see why I truly believe he is the best player on our team.

After his rookie season, a bunch of people thought Conley would be a bust, saying he won’t ever be healthy. However, in his second season, Conley was able to stay on the field, and his impact was vastly felt.

In a season the Raiders finished 4-12, and the defense ranked as the worst in the NFL in points, how can a player on that defense be better than Rodney Hudson, who is one of the best centers in the league?

It’s because Conley himself is also one of the best in the league at his position.

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Before we get into Conley’s achievements, let us first look at some team stats. Oakland’s defense gave up the 14th least passing yards, and a lot of that is skewed towards tight ends and running backs. Against wide receivers alone, Oakland is sixth-best in passing yards behind the Baltimore Ravens, Los Angeles Chargers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Minnesota Vikings and Buffalo Bills, some of the more dominating defenses in the NFL.

In addition, as a unit, the Raiders defense gave up the least number of completions at 299. It’s more impressive when you factor in that the Raiders have the worst pass rush in the NFL, statistically. The pass rush is so bad that you could double there sack total of 13, and they’d still be dead last in the NFL.

Some will say that teams ran the ball so easily, they didn’t need to pass the ball. However, the Raiders were also the fourth-best defense in completion percentage allowed. The three teams better then Oakland in that statistic are the Ravens, New England Patriots, and Chicago Bears.

Keep in mind, these team defense stats are all with having the worst pass rush in the league. All of those stats mentioned is why I believe Gareon Conley is one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL. He was the biggest reason as to why the secondary played so well against wideouts this year.

Now, let us look at some individual stats, and the exact reason I think Conley is so great. According to Pro Football Focus, Gareon Conley gave up 27 total catches. This is the second-least amount of catches allowed behind Richard Sherman‘s total of 25. That means Gareon Conley is giving up a total of 1.68 catches per game, which is superb.

Conley is also allowing only 54% of his catches to be completed.

To go along with that, he had three interceptions and ten pass breakups, on a total of 50 targets. Think about that for a second. On every four passes thrown Conley’s way, he was getting his hands on the ball once.

This season, Conley did drop a few interceptions, but considering the fact he’s getting his hands on the ball so often, I can see Conley producing a 7-10 interceptions season next season.

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Conley had such a great season that he did not once allow more than 60 yards in any game, and after Week 5, he didn’t give up more than 35 yards in any game. His play was so astonishing this season, and the Raiders now have the CB1 they have been missing for years.

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