All jokes aside, Jon Gruden’s Raiders’ offense is worth your optimism
There were legitimate concerns going into last season if Gruden could coordinate a modern NFL offense – after all, he had been away from the sideline for nearly a decade.
Things had – of course – changed.
And despite a bunch of rhetoric that backed up his threat to “throw the game back to 1998”, Gruden did, too.
A Gruden offense is always going to feature both dinks and dunks – and it still lacks play action, a must in any progressive playbook – but his attack last season was an evolution of the West Coast-style offense he ran in Tampa Bay and his first go-around in Oakland. I like to call it the Spread Coast.
The issue was that he didn’t have the players to execute his vision in 2018. This year, he should. And it only took a few snaps against the Arizona Cardinals Thursday night to see that the Raiders’ offense – that Spread Coast attack – has enough talent to be one of the better units in the NFL this year.
Yes, they were going up against a hapless Cardinals team – led by one of those Mcvay-proximate hires, fired Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury (he never had a winning conference record in Lubbock) – but you couldn’t ignore the Raiders’ first-string (for now) offense moving down the field like a hot knife through butter on their only drive of the game.
The team’s re-shuffled offensive line gave quarterback Derek Carr what he needs to be successful – time to throw; rookie running back Josh Jacobs absolutely looked the part of an NFL three-down back; free-agent signing Tyrell Williams won a one-on-one ball on the sideline; and Ryan Grant found the end zone on an expertly drawn and perfectly executed play.
They were smooth. They exerted total control over an inferior opponent. Guys were wide open – and when they weren’t, they were good enough to make the play anyway. They manhandled and outclassed the Cardinals.
And while it was only one series, the talent was undeniable. The scheme impressed too.