Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels has been too conservative this year
Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels has been too conservative this year
This conservative approach has failed multiple times
Against Arizona in the second half, McDaniels threw the ball just 11 times and didn’t get the ball to Davante Adams a single time from halftime to overtime. The defense couldn’t keep the Arizona offense off the field and the Raiders still had a chance to win until Hunter Renfrow’s fumble in OT.
In Jacksonville, the Raiders went up 17-0 in the second quarter before a couple of quick Jaguar scores made it a little tighter at 20-10 at the half. An opening third quarter touchdown made it even tighter at 20-17 and the wheels fell off the Raider offense. McDaniels once again failed to scheme up easy touches for Adams and relied too heavily on a run game that was ineffective on the day.
Most recently against the Los Angeles Rams, the Raiders were up 16-3 with 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter and simply played not to lose against a team that was ready to give up. In that second half, McDaniels punted on 4th and 1 from the Rams 49 when up 13-3 and kicked a field goal on 4th and 3 from the Rams 18 to go up 13. Derek Carr also only threw the ball 20 times against a team that is a top 5 unit against the run and 20th against the pass.
On the final Raiders possession of the day before the Rams took the lead, McDaniels called three straight runs to kill clock and schemed up a horrific play call on 3rd and 1 that saw Josh Jacobs stacked up in the backfield. He punted as expected on the next play and the Rams marched down the field thanks to some heroic catches from their receivers, awful defensive play-calling, and boneheaded mistakes from a couple Raiders defenders.
The constant theme around these blown leads is that McDaniels has not been aggressive when he needs to be and has not done a good enough job of scheming the best receiver in the game open when the chips are down. McDaniels has also been conservative to a fault and especially to start drives. The Raiders pass the ball on first down just 55% of the time, good enough for 24th in the league and are 14th in the league in total pass attempts. Last year they threw the ball on 62% of first downs, tied for 11th in the league and this was without the best receiver in the game.
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The conservative approach of run-run-pass on every drive and punting in late-game situations works when you have a defense that can back you up and the Raiders clearly don’t have that. McDaniels operates as if he has a top five scoring defense rather than the 24th best and that has cost the Raiders several times this season when they had big leads. If McDaniels is still the coach in 2023 then he will either have to undergo a philosophical shift or build an elite defense and we can only hope it’s a bit of both.