After an embarrassing offensive effort against the Redskins, there was plenty of speculation as to how the Raiders might attack the Denver defense on Sunday.
According to Raiders voice Greg Papa, at least part of the offensive gameplan was to speed things up.
“I had a long conversation with Todd Downing, the Raiders offensive coordinator, Sunday in Denver before the game. We were talking about tempo, how much he wanted to use tempo and he said they put in for the game against the Broncos, well, they wanted to go fast,” Papa said on Tuesday during his 95.7 The Game radio show. “They wanted to snap it every 20 seconds and bring a little of Bill Musgrave’s Philadelphia experiment with Chip Kelly to the Raiders.”
In an effort to keep the tempo, Papa added that the coaches had instructed Carr to check out of plays at the line of scrimmage only when absolutely necessary.
As it turned out, the Raiders barely used tempo at all against the Broncos.
Before he was injured, Carr took only one snap (in 33 plays) with 20 seconds or more on the play clock.
On average, Carr snapped the ball with 6.7 seconds on the play clock and not counting the opening play of each drive (when it’s easier to get set up quickly), he averaged 5.4 seconds remaining on the play clock per snap.
Interestingly, the one time the Raiders got to the line and snapped the ball quickly, it resulted in a four-yard slam up the middle by DeAndre Washington – the second longest run of the day for the offense.
It would have been interesting to see if the Raiders would have had success playing with tempo, but outside of Washington’s run it never happened. Maybe it was something the Broncos showed defensively or maybe the Raiders just never got around to it.
Whatever the reason, it’s water under the bridge now.
On to Baltimore…
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