Offenses Better Change Their Signals Before Facing Paul Guenther

Over the last few years it sometimes seemed like the Raiders barely understood their own defensive calls from the sideline.

Under new defensive coordinator Paul Guenther, players will be expected to understand not only their own play calls, but probably some of their opponents’ calls, too.

Former Bengals linebacker A.J. Hawk played under Guenther in Cincinnati and talked about the effort Guenther used to put into learning the verbiage of opposing teams before playing them.

“Something we did in Cincinnati that I’m sure everyone is doing now… there are so many microphones all over the field, they pick up a lot of the quarterback’s checks and the calls and the center and line calls like which way the line would be sliding on certain looks,” Hawk told The Athletic.

“We would watch clips of the TV copy when it would pick up their different calls or signals. We would know it was possible that they could change them, but there was no stone left unturned. No question.”

Hawk said one of the reasons players could keep up with Guenther on game day was because he still managed to keep their assignments as simple as possible.

“I liked the way that (Guenther’s staff) presented the information in a way that didn’t confuse you,” Hawk said. “They didn’t just throw 5,000 plays at you and made you feel like you had to prepare for 50 different route combinations on third down. No one could do that. The coaches showed you what you would most likely see from the offense. For example, if we’re in the red zone in this area of the field, we’re likely to see these two route combinations on the weakside.”

Welcome to Oakland, Paul Guenther. Your arrival has been long overdue.

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