Raiders offensive coordinator Greg Olson made an appearance on the State of the Nation podcast last week and he was posed with an interesting question by co-host Ted Nguyen in regard to the Raiders use play action passes:
The question and Olson’s response are both noteworthy.
“I believe the former staff thought it wasn’t to Carr’s strength to have his back toward the defense,” Nguyen said to Olson. “Obviously play action is going to be a big part of the offense this year. Have you noticed if he struggled with that on film…?”
“We don’t see that with Derek,” Olson responded. “We see that to be one of his strengths to be honest with you.”
It’s no secret that the Raiders want to utilize more play action this year and it is nice to know they view play action as one of Carr’s strengths.
Maybe it’s been reported in the past, but if the previous coaching staff wasn’t comfortable calling play action passes because of Carr, it would be interesting to know the reasons why – because Carr excelled at play action passes under Bill Musgrave.
The unfounded idea to incorporate more outside zone runs was a failed adjustment last year (who was responsible for that idea?), but the lack of play action passes seemed a lot more innocent when the assumption was that the play-caller simply forgot to call them.
As it turns out, maybe it was by design all along.
twitter: @raidersbeat
Let’s move on from Downing era and never speak of it again..after some “Downsizing” we are on track.
Simply put, last year’s coaching staff on both sides of the ball was a bunch of idiots. This simply proves it.