When the Raiders decided to part ways with former offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave and move forward with Todd Downing, one of top priorities was to lean more on a dominant rushing attack.
It’s been a work in progress and the Raiders offense has clearly digressed in the process, but with four games remaining in the season, the Raiders are finally having success running the ball.
What sparked the improvement, you ask? Offensive line coach Mike Tice May may have offered a clue on Wednesday.
325 yards rushing L3 games. Tice: "Since the bye, we’ve scaled back on some of the runs that we were trying & we settled in on some of the things we were doing well."
— Vic Tafur (@VicTafur) December 6, 2017
Was it the zone concepts that Tice scrapped during the week off? Maybe not entirely, but Marshawn Lynch’s 51-yard scamper did come behind the smashmouth power blocking so familiar to the Raiders hefty linemen.
Interestingly, the Raiders haven’t improved in terms of yards per carry (4.2) since the bye week, but it seems they’ve shown greater commitment to running the ball with 82 runs in three weeks.
On Sunday, the Raiders will face the third-worst run defense in the league and it’s worth noting that it was after the Chiefs game a year ago that Del Rio voiced some frustration with then-coordinator Bill Musgrave for not running the ball down the stretch.
Whatever the scheme the Raiders feature this week, expect to see another 20-25 carries for Lynch and 8-10 for his backfield mates.
The Chiefs secondary is depleted, but you can be certain the gameplan on Sunday will be runs, runs, and more runs – with a deep ball over the head of Darrelle Revis at some point.
twitter: @raidersbeat
I sure hope they can lean on the run on Sunday and limit how much Carr has to do . We know he can sling it against the Chiefs as evidenced by his performance against rhem earlier this year . But the less he has to throw it , the more efficient he can be . He’s a gifted passer but I never like to see him have to throw the ball more than 25 to 30 times in a game . That usually means they’re trailing and the defense can’t stop anybody . Would be nice to see him lead the team to the first win at KC as their quarterback but not on the strength of his arm .