What’s wrong with the Raiders rush defense?
The first thing that jumps out to the naked eye is that the Raiders’ defensive line is not showing the same gap discipline as they did under Brentson Buckner. Rod Marinelli took over for Buckner as the defensive line coach and so far the results have been unimpressive after the Raiders looked competent against the run in 2019.
This could just be a matter of guys getting comfortable with Marinelli’s scheme and trusting the guy next to them but it has been uninspiring so far.
The second reason, and perhaps the more obvious one, is the change in personnel for the Raiders at linebacker. Last season they had several “thumpers” at linebacker in Tahir Whitehead, Vontaze Burfict before the suspension, Marquel Lee, and Will Compton none of whom are on the team right now.
The Raiders replaced them with Cory Littleton who is supposed to be more of a coverage linebacker and Nick Kwiatkoski who has missed the last two games with a pec injury and has been replaced by the undersized Nicholas Morrow. Theoretically the Raiders should be better against the pass than run but against a team like the Patriots that is so flexible in how they attack you, they simply went at the primary weakness and had great success.