MODS PLEASE LOCK

[njavier03]

If you don’t like Gruden then idk what to tell you. He’s probably one of the best and most obsessed football minds around.

 

[HNL HI]

Is his contract up or nah?

He wasn't shy about his feelings when KNJ got cut. He reconciled with JDR but then JDR got cut.

I know KNJ was his boy, but his #s went way up after he got fired

 

[ThePeoplesChamp_]

Amerson signed with KC

 

[polar610]

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/2/15/17017432/sebastian-janikowski-kicker-oakland-raiders

 

[Deleted member 185039]

He was deployed by Lane Kiffin in 2008 in a proxy war with Davis, when Kiffin ordered Janikowski to attempt a 76-yard field goal to make a statement about the team’s lack of talent on offense. (It was Kiffin’s last official act as coach before being fired by Davis for insubordination.)

You have to love Kiffin.

 

[ThePeoplesChamp_]

And they wore the Whites at home, he was trying to get fired.

 

[raider5]

And they wore the Whites at home, he was trying to get fired.

I had season tickets that year. Had to bottom up a fifth of privilege to make it through each game

 

[ThePeoplesChamp_]

I had season tickets that year. Had to bottom up a fifth of privilege to make it through each game

tailgates were the highlight of the day

 

[Johnny_Cakes]

Raiders Film Room: Five plays broken down by Derek Carr at his 'Inside the Huddle' event

By Ted Nguyen 13 hours ago

FRESNO — Derek Carr's “Inside the Huddle” fundraiser is a great way to go behind the scenes and get some extra insight and information from the Raiders quarterback.

With it also supporting a good cause in Valley Children's Healthcare, I decided to make the drive to Fresno on Saturday for the event with Carr and his brother David.

From an outside perspective, I can determine the basics of a play based on my knowledge of general football strategy and history. However, without being in meetings and knowing exactly how the Raiders designed or practiced a play, I have to just make an educated guess on some details based on the clues from film.

And this session — with Derek and David going through the plays — definitely provided unique insight, which we will go through, with their help.

But first, some background: In August 2013, Derek and his wife Heather gave birth to their first son, Dallas, who shortly after was rushed into emergency surgery with a life-threatening congenital anomaly.

After two surgeries and a 23-day stay in the Valley Children's Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Dallas got better and is now a healthy 4-year-old. To celebrate that and honor the work done at the hospital, Derek and Heather started their campaign DC4KIDS to fund Valley Children's. One of the ways they raise money is their “Inside the Huddle” event where David and Derek break down film for an audience.

Check out their website for information on DC4KIDS and how to donate.

Offensive coaches and players will rarely give up too much detail on plays until after the season because they fear that the information may get to opposing defensive coordinators, so Carr's event was interesting because it confirmed a lot of what I thought and added some inside details to the story of each play.

So let's go through the plays that he and David broke down:

Holton's long TD vs. the Broncos
Before breaking down the play, Carr told the story about wide receiver Johnny Holton's first minicamp.

“I throw him a ball in a drill … it goes straight through his hands and hits him the eye socket,” Carr recalled.

Carr said it was a really embarrassing moment for Holton to have that happen in front of the team and Holton even thought about quitting after that incident.

But he didn't quit, and Carr credits how Holton “worked his tail off and ended up making the team that year and made this team this year and ended up making like seven big plays for us.”

Holton is your quintessential big-play receiver. His 4.2 speed makes him a dangerous deep threat. One of the big plays he made was a long touchdown against the Broncos on a play designed to get him matched up on a much slower safety.

I tweeted about the play immediately after it happened in Week 4:




Ted Nguyen@FB_FilmAnalysis

Breakdown of Holton's TD.

1:46 PM - Oct 1, 2017

• 
  157
• 
  58 people are talking about this

Twitter Ads info and privacy




Carr explained that the defense is in “a version of Cover 4.” Some coaches call it Cover 6 — it's a combo coverage with Cover 2 on one side and Cover 4 to the other. To Holton's side, the defense is in Cover 4 and the “safety’s job is to take the first vertical,” Carr said. “The corner's job is to hang outside and take the other one.”

It's a popular coverage and Carr and then-offensive coordinator Todd Downing knew the rules of the defense when designing the play.

“(The Broncos) wanted (the safety) on Clive (Walford) and keep the corner on Johnny,” Carr said. “What we did was switch them up like this, we ended up creating a mismatch.”

The safety didn't stand a chance, Holton burned him, caught the ball, and ran the rest of the way for the touchdown.

Cooper's sluggo TD vs. the Eagles
Carr made it a point to highlight Amari Cooper's toughness for even being able to play against the Eagles on Christmas night. Cooper aggravated a high-ankle sprain two weeks earlier against the Chiefs and Carr said Cooper barely practiced all week.

“This man is playing on one foot,” Carr recalled. “(Cooper) fought his tail off just to be able to play. … I'd rather have that guy on my team than a guy that is healthy and doesn't care.”

Cooper was criticized a lot for his dip in production and some of the criticism was warranted, but it's harder to criticize his toughness. During his rookie year in 2015, he pushed through a foot injury to finish the season, and this year he only missed one game despite suffering the ankle sprain.

The week before the Eagles played the Raiders, the Philadelphia secondary had one of its worst performances of the season and was repeatedly burned by double-moves. Carr noted that in his preparation for the game.

“Over the course of the week we saw No. 31 (Jalen Mills) is a very talented corner, but he’s also very aggressive,” Carr said.


The Raiders had Cooper singled up to the right of a 3-by-1 formation. Mills lined up over Cooper and initially gave a bump coverage look but backed off before the snap. This was vital because usually when defensive backs play off coverage they have their eyes on the quarterback to read his drop.

If they see a short drop, they usually jump short routes.


Carr said, “We knew when he was in off coverage his eyes were on me. … We knew that if his eyes were on me, I’m going to set my feet like I’m throwing a slant. As he jumps the slant, I end up putting one foot in the ground and just standing like this, and then as he jumps the slant … I hit Cooper behind him.”

Cooper's long TD on third-and-22 vs. the Chargers
Carr talked about a play that the Raiders ran twice at different points of the season to illustrate how he and Cooper have to be on the same page on an option route — they had to read the position of the safety as the play unfolds.

“(Cooper) has a tight split, which means he's tight to the offensive linemen,” Carr said. “We have terms for that but I don't want to share it with you … there might be a Patriots coach here.”

Which, of course, drew laughter.

On the play in the final game of the season, the Chargers were in quarters coverage and Cooper had to deal with a double team from the corner and safety. The corner played Cooper on the outside, while the safety had to cover his inside. Cooper had to lean towards the outside to get the corner out of the play before having to make a decision on how to attack the safety.

Carr explained, “Amari’s job on this play is to attack the corner … lean on him and try to make him widen.”


Cooper had two choices on the play.

“The safety is really low and not very deep, Coop runs behind him,” Carr said. “If that guy gets really deep, he cuts in front of his face. … It’s a big deal that me and Coop are on the same page.”

Carr made it a point to highlight the anticipation necessary for the throw. In the NFL, you can't wait for receivers to get open.

Said David Carr: “At this point right here, Amari is running full speed and his hips are still facing Derek. … The safety really had no chance … the referee had a better chance.”

Cooper's big play vs. the Chiefs
The Raiders actually ran this same play against the Chiefs on the game-winning drive in that thrilling Thursday night game. I wrote about that play in my film room piece for that game. Carr said it was the “same exact play, we just flipped it around.”

In the later Dec. 10 meeting, Cooper again had to deal with a double team but against a different coverage. But in the Oct. 19 game at home, he faced two-man coverage — meaning the corner played Cooper man-to-man with a trail technique while a safety gave him deep help behind him.

Cooper's tight split caused the corner to play him with outside leverage, which gave Cooper a free inside release.


Unlike the play against the Chargers, Carr said the safety was far away, so Cooper could cross in front of him.

“We have to read that at the same time,” Carr said.

David Carr added, “the safety on the top at 50-yard line and the safety here, there is no way the ball should be thrown. … Probably a throw that I wouldn’t have made.”

You can really see how difficult this throw was from the end-zone angle. That arm talent is one of the reasons why Jon Gruden is so excited to work with Carr. Only a handful of people in the world could make that throw.


David said, “The distance that Derek has to throw the ball there to where he ends up throwing the ball is not natural. … This is why I stopped playing catch with him when he was 14. I just refused to have the ball coming back at me harder than how I’m throwing at him.”

Crabtree's game-winning TD vs. the Chiefs
Everyone remembers the final red zone series in that Week 7 win against the Chiefs, with the touchdowns taken off the board and the untimed downs until Carr finally rolled left and hit Michael Crabtree at the pylon for the touchdown.

The Raiders have used that same play successfully in the red zone for years. The basis of the play is to fool the defense into thinking that Crabtree is running a goal-line fade; he has been productive on that pattern throughout the years, so defenses are obviously alerted to it.

Carr broke down the details that go into the play.

“We want to sell like he’s running that fade, then he stops,” Carr said. “He doesn’t push off because that’s a penalty … but he may give him a nudge.”

Carr is right-handed, so the Raiders typically call it to the right.

“I worked this play a couple hundred times to my right,” Carr said.


David said he started to get really concerned when he saw Carr sprinting to his left but Derek said, “I asked for this play. … Coach Downing to his credit was like, ‘man absolutely.'”

Carr admitted he wanted to run the play to left to avoid throwing to Pro Bowl cornerback Marcus Peters, who almost always lines up to the right of the formation.



During this exchange, Carr recalled that he went up to Crabtree and said, “bro, it worked!” After all of the drama that occurred on that series, a concerned Crabtree said, “I hope it counts.”

For the Raiders, these well-executed plays were too few and far in between for a multitude of reasons. David Carr said he thought that the attention to details were lacking last season and added that Gruden is a maniac when it comes to details, which is one of the reasons Derek is so excited to work with him.

Besides getting to learn these insider details to the plays, it was interesting to see how the fans hung on to Derek's every word. Raider Nation loves their quarterback, but the city of Fresno has a different bond with the Carr family. When someone asked Carr how the move to Vegas would affect his charity work, Carr vowed to continue to be part the Fresno community and his fund with Valley Children's after the move.

I had a great time. It was both intellectually satisfying to dig into some X's and O's and emotionally gratifying to see how many people the Carr family is affecting.

 

[Johnny_Cakes]

Annoys me when I post these articles that the videos accompanying them aren't available. If you guys follow Ted on Twitter I'm sure you can find the clips he's referring to by comparing the dates in the article.

 

[Johnny_Cakes]

Man, MMQB has a great article posted today about Chuckie coming back. Can’t post the whole thing in quoted form but here’s the link:

https://t.co/u4qzStVVOb

 

[HNL HI]

pretty cool that Al's office is still the same, would be awesome if you could tour it

 

[ThePeoplesChamp_]

pretty cool that Al's office is still the same, would be awesome if you could tour it

They gonna shrink wrap it to Las Vegas?



Have it on display next to Nacho Cart at the new Stadium

 

[Deleted member 185039]

 

[Deleted member 185039]

Who is on this roster in 2018? Who isn't?

 

[sohi 23]

Peters out the division

Raiders get 4 compensatory picks. All in the 6th round. That's 11 picks in April. Good **** Reggie.

Basically... Latavius Murray, DJ Hayden, Malcolm Smith & Nate Allen got traded for 4 6th round picks.

Keep in mind, Oakland swapped picks with Seattle for the Lynch trade. Oakland gets their 6th round pick and Seattle gets Oakland's 5th round pick. In total, the Raiders now have 6 6th round picks lol.

 

[laker4lifeman]

You can trade them starting this year.

 

[raider5]

I don't even know what to make of this, but if by any slim chance this **** falls through, I'd pay gooooooood money to see Mark Davis' face

 

[ThePeoplesChamp_]

I don't even know what to make of this, but if by any slim chance this **** falls through, I'd pay gooooooood money to see Mark Davis' face

Having to play at Sam Boyd Stadium would be too funny. That place is the worst place to watch a game

 

[monstar]

with all the expansion in vegas i wonder how many bodies been dug up

 

[Johnny_Cakes]

Raiders have started sending to season ticket holders information about preparing to reserve their seats in Las Vegas. We have until the summer period to commit.

 

[Deleted member 185039]

Well hopefully the running game improves under Gruden - last year was just lol

 

[ThePeoplesChamp_]

Crabtree coming back

 

[ThePeoplesChamp_]

Raiders have started sending to season ticket holders information about preparing to reserve their seats in Las Vegas. We have until the summer period to commit.

Are you?

 

[raider5]