One of the key moves of the Raiders’ offseason was the decision to retain defensive coordinator Patrick Graham, and it was one of the rare football decisions in Las Vegas that didn’t seem to have many critics.
Graham’s defenses have been a bright spot for the organization since he arrived in 2022 with Josh McDaniels, and Graham has now worked under three head coaches in just over three years with the team.
With Graham’s success in Las Vegas (and essentially everywhere else) there wouldn’t be many objections to sticking with what has been working for the Raiders on defense over the last three years, but with Pete Carroll in the building, it sounds like Graham’s defense is going to get some tweaks.
We’ve already seen Jakorian Bennett, who played well for Graham last year, shipped to the Philadelphia Eagles and at least one media personality around the team believes the defense is going to look different this year with Carroll’s influence.
“I feel like that there’s a lot of chess pieces now for Patrick Graham to play with. Like a lot of people believe that this is going to be the same defense that we’ve seen the last couple of years. I don’t believe that,” Myers said on the Locked on Raiders podcast last week. “I believe that this defense is going to look a lot different than what we’ve seen. There’s a lot of different moving parts that they have.”
“They have the Jamal Adams edition… they have the Jeremy Chinn going down playing the big nickel. They have guys like Tyree Wilson that they’re going to get burned at the defensive tackle spot,” Myers continued.
“There’s different guys that can play different roles and I think that’s something to pay attention to when you watch this team develop and the defense develop.”
x: @raidersbeat
Graham was terrible countering after halftime. AP seemed to help him in that regard when has interim. Mostly blitzing more. I think Pete will have a stronger hold on in game adjustments. At least I hope so.
Graham is like a less talented Davante Adams of assistant coaches. He thinks he deserves a HC gig but Spagnulo would run circles around him.
Well Spags is top two DC’s. Graham is lucky to be top ten.
Graham can’t really be compared with Spags bc the Chiefs are a lot more talented on defense. Graham has been handicapped bc the Raiders have been inept at drafting talent. He’s done well with the team, otherwise he wouldn’t have been retained. Plus the Chiefs defense is helped immensely by having a great offense than keeps them fresh throughout the game.
That part!
Screw spags and the chiefs! That is all…