It’s no secret that the NFL offseason is when league and team employees do most of their talking to members of the media. Plenty of lies are making rounds this time of year, but bad takes (i.e. stupid opinions) are also in peak season.
Take, for example, this synopsis from an anonymous league executive about the Raiders running game…
“I don’t get what [the Raiders] doing,” the executive told The Athletic’s Mike Sando. “The only thing they did good last season was to be physically imposing and run the football. If you’re them and you don’t have that, I don’t know what you are good at.”
If the Raiders are lucky, the aforementioned “league executive” is employed in the AFC West, but far away from Las Vegas. The Raiders were very average in terms of running the ball in 2020 and Josh Jacobs watched his yards-per-carry drop from 4.8 YPA in 2019 to 3.9 YPA in 2020. In terms of pass protection, the Raiders offensive line was solid, but they were only the 26th-best run blocking line in the NFL, according to Pro Football Focus analytics. Run blocking was an ongoing issue all year.
So what did the Raiders lose this offseason in terms of physically imposing run blockers?
They lost a very good run blocker in Rodney Hudson, but Gabe Jackson has not graded well as a run blocker over the last two years and Trent Brown hardly played enough to be missed. The team’s top-graded run blocker, Richie Incognito, is returning from a season lost due to injury and the Raiders will likely have a rookie tackle taking over for Brown on the right side of the offensive line.
Going forward, the Raiders will probably experience a few growing pains in terms of pass protection, but they will be hard-pressed to run block at a lower level than they did in 2020. They were a lot of things last year, but a physically-imposing run monster is one thing Jon Gruden’s offense was not. If anything, a sputtering run game may have been one of the reasons Gruden decided to make the moves that he did.
twitter: @raidersbeat
Glad that anonymous exec works for a rival!
Hmmmm….. far away AFC west team…the CHEFS!!! You do not want to divulge your name but we all know who you are. OK Mr. top NFL executive with a big title man. We beat you! ya we beat YOU take that to the corn field. You don’t have kahoonas to say who you are. The bucks opened up a can of woop-*** on you. Just wait mahooomie ketchup boy. When mahoomie deeks out Crosby Nigakue will pile drive mr. ketchup to the ground! good night now! yikes spilled ketchup.
I bet the executive was Alexandria ocasio Cortez
Nice to read someone who realizes that we’re not replacing Trent Brown, since he was about as available as Art Shell, and that Gabe Jackson had sunk to replacement level. I think Kolton Miller Year 4 is an upgrade from Kolton Miller Year 3, Incognito playing is an upgrade from Incognito not playing, Hudson is a loss that hopefully James or Martin can ease with decent play, Jackson is easily replaced by Goode , Simpson or Cotton, and right tackle will either be addressed early in the draft or plugged with Goode or some other vet. So a (hopefully minor) downgrade at center, improvements on the left side, and same performance or, in the case of a stud in the draft, better on the right side.
Good post, and I complete agree. I applaud Gruden and Mayock for looking more deeply into the numbers and realizing that not all was right with the offensive line, especially given how much the released players were being paid. Now the question is whether or not they can effectively rebuild the line.
Yeah…..the old adage about opinions and an orifice applies to that guy.
The raidersbeatdown finally realize what team they cover, you made a real report looked into facts how the offensive line has struggled the last two years. One good report won’t get rid of the beatdown name but this is a start.
“an anonymous league executive” in English means “BS made up crap”.
Either this ‘reporter’ is coming up with trash just to try to get his hidden agenda out or he has been doped by somebody else’s lies. IF they won’t go on record with their name, it is because they are not telling you the truth. The “the aforementioned “league executive” is employed in the AFC West” is factious at best – at worst, it is some clown from another team trying to stir the pot. Articles like this are useless and sophomoric. This article is a waste of time. I’d prefer that the sports writer just manned up and claimed this as his/her own beliefs, which are WRONG by the way…. the Raiders will have a better running game this year than last.
I wondered for a long time why the Raiders Oline kept getting compliments as a unit. How often did Jacobs have a huge hole to run through? How often had Olinemen successfully blocked at the first level and then threw a successful block at the second level? Jacobs got his interior yards by having the vision to find a crease when the primary hole didn’t materialize, juke a defender, and then bowl over, carry, and/or drag a tackler. The only running back I can remember watching who could get lots of yards without a dominant Oline was Barry Sanders. After Jacobs got hurt late the prior season I would imagine the coaches told him to save his body from so much punishment so he would be available for his huge workload.
Pass blocking wasn’t that great either. So many Carr haters out there blame him. How good can a QB be when he often times only had 2 seconds to get the pass off? This isn’t the Patriots when Tom Brady could kick back a lazy boy in the pocket and eat a bowl of popcorn while watching a movie before finding an open receiver. I criticized Gruden for not using Ruggs like the Chiefs use Hill. But then again the Chiefs consistently gave Mahomes time to wait for Hill to run around and get open. Even when the Oline allowed pressure on Mahomes he usually had an escape route. Carr was more likely to have a free pass rusher coming at him or have half the Oline pushed back into his lap.