Rick Dennison was hired by the Las Vegas Raiders to transform a league-worst offensive line. And it only took one game for the unit to look like one worth believing in. Still in the early part of this process, though, some highs and lows are expected, and on Sunday, the unit took a step back.
Not only was the Raiders' rushing attack stifled by the Los Angeles Chargers' defense in Week 2, but Kirk Cousins was under duress much more than he was a week ago. Somehow, the offense stayed afloat, but the offensive line woes contributed more than a little to the crew's limitations.
Upon further film review, though, Las Vegas' offensive line wasn't to blame for everything. Yes, they struggled in pass protection throughout the contest, but the team's inability to run the football may have been at least partially on the group of running backs as well. Let's jump in.
Raiders' pass protection took a huge step back in Week 2 vs. Chargers
"Our quarterback got hit too many times. He got hit 10 times yesterday, two sacks. So, we have to improve there," Klint Kubiak told reporters on Monday.
Statistically speaking, things were much worse for the Raiders' offensive line in Week 2. A brief look at the numbers will tell you that story, and the film backs it up as well.
OL Stat | Week 1 | Week 2 |
|---|---|---|
Sacks | 0 | 2 |
QB Hits | 2 | 10 |
Pressures | 7 | 12 |
Pressure Rate | 22.6% | 37.5% |
Nobody is necessarily shocked that the Chargers' defensive front posed more problems for Las Vegas than Miami's did. And by no means was this a disastrous performance for the Raiders' offensive line; it just wasn't as lights-out as their showing on opening weekend was.
But after looking at the tape, here were the root causes of each of the Raiders' sacks and pressures:
- Jackson Powers-Johnson got mauled by Teair Tart to sack Cousins
- DJ Glaze got beat on an inside chop move by Khalil Mack to sack Cousins
- Spencer Burford and Kolton Miller messed up a stunt
- Ian Thomas didn't get his feet under him in time on a motion play and got pushed back into Cousins
- Tyler Linderbaum and JPJ didn't get enough of the defensive tackle before vacating for a screen
- Burford got beat on a spin move
- Linderbaum got bull-rushed (to be fair, illegal use of hands to the face should have been called)
- JPJ was pushed back into Cousins
- JPJ won the initial rep but got beat on a hand swipe on the second move
- Burford lost in almost the exact same way as JPJ on the play above^
- Glaze was leaning too far and didn't turn his head in time to see a Derwin James blitz
- Thomas missed a cut block
That is a lot to clean up for Dennison's group before a Week 3 bout against the New Orleans Saints, but none of it is unfixable. Los Angeles, for as bad as they've been to start the season, have a very good front seven, and even this performance didn't derail the Raiders' offense completely.
Raiders' rushing issues against Chargers weren't necessarily all the OL's fault
It would be easy to look at the box score, see 29 carries for 57 yards, and blame Las Vegas' offensive line for not paving lanes for Ashton Jeanty and Mike Washington Jr. And in some ways, that is a correct assessment, and plays like this certainly won't help folks think otherwise.
Of course, the Raiders' big boys up front could have played a lot better and opened up gaping holes for the running backs once again, as they did in Week 1. But that's not how things will be on a week-to-week basis, and they learned that the hard way in Week 2.
But here's the kicker: the advanced stats say that the running backs were more to blame for the poor rushing performance on Sunday. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Jeanty had 14 yards fewer than expected, and Washington Jr. had 4 yards fewer than expected.
To be fair to them, their expected yards per carry were still 2.9 and 3.6, respectively, which is not close to enough to get it done in the NFL. But the synergy clearly wasn't there, and both players have proven that they can make something out of nothing. They didn't do that in Week 2.
And neither player played as stacked a box as they did in Week 1. Obviously, the offensive line wasn't getting push in the run game and climbing to the second level, but the running backs didn't make them look good either. It was a shared poor effort for the Raiders.
Add us as a preferred source on Google