Raiders Against Slot Receivers
Posted By admin On 13/04/22Raiders aim to exorcise demons of past against new-look Patriots. The 5-foot-10, 198-pound Edelman is the type of slot receiver that has given the Raiders fits the past couple years, but he. With Myles Gaskin being placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list, the Miami Dolphins are now minus their top three running backs for Sunday's game vs. The Kansas City Chiefs. Blame for the terrible offensive output against Raiders is almost solely on Drew Lock. Lock misses three receivers who come open. Who lines up in the slot. This should have been defensive.
Over the last two offseasons, Mike Mayock and Jon Gruden have tried to build an offense that is multiple and diverse. They brought in fullback Alec Ingold to play power fullback and Jason Witten to help the team run more multiple tight end sets.
Slot Receivers In The Nfl
While both the team’s 21 (two running backs, one tight) and 12 (one running back, two tight ends) packages have been efficient, it is very evident through five games where this offense is at it’s best.
Raiders Against Slot Receivers Wins
On the season, the Raiders have run 48 percent of their plays with three receivers on the field. On those 158 total plays, the team is averaging a whopping 8.7 yards per attempt through the air and 4.5 yards on the ground. Their overall success rate sits at 57 percent, the highest of any personnel grouping on the team.
It makes sense because the Raiders have their best collection of talent on the field when they are in 11 personnel. Hunter Renfrow has graded out as one of the best slot receivers in the league and he makes them a much better and consistent offense.
If rookie receivers Henry Ruggs III and Bryan Edwards can continue to improve with Nelson Agholor rotating in to spell them, this package should only see more snaps as the season goes along. The Raiders will certainly utilize the fullback and multiple tight end sets as well, but just know that the team is at its best with three receivers on the field.
In the 2019 NFL season, per Sports Info Solutions, there were 19,933 total quarterback dropbacks. Against those dropbacks, NFL defenses put four defensive backs on the field just 18% of the time (3,579 snaps), while nickel defense (with five defensive backs) ruled the league by far with 59% of all snaps (11,780). And if you want to know how much the NFL isn’t a base defense league anymore, consider this: Defenses lined up in dime coverage (six defensive backs on the field) on 20.9% of total dropbacks (4,091), which means that teams played more dime defense than base defense. The Seahawks were the only team to play base defense more than 50% of the time (67%), and the Cardinals finished second at 37%.
All this is to say that unless you’re the Seahawks, you’d better have some top-level slot defenders if you want to put a credible pass defense out there in a league where offenses are implementing more kinds of receiver sets and route combinations than ever before.
Raiders Against Slot Receivers Game
And it’s not as if the skill sets required to be a slot defender are the same as those for an outside cornerback. You might be up against a 6-foot-5, 250-pound tight end on first down who can body you right out of the paint, and on the next play, you may have to deal with a small, speedy option-route receiver whose job is to juke you right out of your shoes. And as Richard Sherman once told me in his Seattle days, the thing about playing outside cornerback is that the boundary is your friend. That’s not the case when you’re in the slot, where you’re defending in space pretty much all the time.
So, which slot defenders were the most effective and valuable to their teams in 2019, and thus should be set up to do the same in 2020? With help from Pro Football Focus’ metrics, and a whole lot of tape study, here’s one list. To avoid small sample-size results, each of these defenders played at least 50% of their snaps in the slot.
Mike Hilton Chris Harris Jr. Jourdan Lewis Tramon Williams Mackensie Alexander Nickell Robey-Coleman Marlon Humphrey D.J. Hayden Brian Poole K’Waun Williams Tyrann Mathieu