Autry taking aim at the QB
When Denico Autry considers the Raiders’ sack total this season — 19 in 11 games — he believes it should be higher.
“Going back, at the beginning of the season, I missed a lot of sacks,” Autry said. “I’m just trying to catch up, man.”
Autry, a fourth-year defensive lineman, didn’t miss last weekend against the Broncos, accounting for two of the Raiders’ season-high five sacks. One in particular left an impression on new play-caller John Pagano.
On a second-quarter rush, Autry planted his right shoulder against guard Ron Leary and shoved the 6-foot-3, 317pound Leary aside en route to
quarterback Paxton Lynch. Both Broncos ended up on the grass.
“He had one sack you can’t coach,” Pagano said of Autry. “It was straight man — I mean, lifted the guy up and threw him down.”
Added defensive tackle Justin Ellis: “(Autry) made him look like a little kid.”
While that play showcased the strength Ellis said he knows Autry has, the Raiders’ five sacks in the game offered a tantalizing glimpse of what their pass rush could be. Despite the presence of reigning Defensive Player of the Year Khalil Mack, the Raiders are tied for the fourth-fewest sacks in the league entering Sunday’s game against the Giants after finishing last in that category (25) in 2016.
After last season, head coach Jack Del Rio pointed to the lack of an interior pass rush — which allowed offenses to key on edge rushers Bruce Irvin and Mack — as an area the Raiders had to improve.
Oakland drafted defensive tackles in the third round (Eddie Vanderdoes) and seventh round (Treyvon Hester) in April after spending their second-round pick last year on a defensve end ( Jihad Ward). Through 11 games, though, the only members of their defense to reach the quarterback aside from Mack and Irvin are end Mario Edwards Jr. (3.5 sacks), Autry (3) and safety Karl Joseph (1).
Del Rio said Friday that the play of Autry and Edwards this season has been “strong” and the rookies have been “in spurts pretty good.” Ellis said he thinks the group “could be better — consistently. But I think we’ve done some good things this year.”
The difference in the rush against Denver? Autry said what the Raiders ran against Denver was “all the same stuff we’ve been running. It hasn’t changed. We just executed better.”
After notching three sacks in 14 games in 2015, and an NFL-high three blocked kicks on special teams, Autry started last season playing with a bulky wrap around his right hand and wrist, the result of an injury that hampered him most of the year.
“I only had one hand playing inside where you get grabbed a lot and doubleteamed,” he said. “Now I’ve just healed up a lot and come back stronger.”
Part of Autry’s appeal is that, at 6-5 and 270 pounds, he can play positions all along the line, from the interior to the “Leo” edge rusher role. In that way he resembles Mack, who rushed from the inside more often against the Broncos.
On Autry’s first sack, for example, he lined up over the right tackle as one of two down linemen, with Mack over his inside shoulder. When the ball was snapped, the two stunted with Mack going at the tackle and Autry slipping inside against Leary, whom he beat.
Pagano, the new defensive coordinator who called plays for the first time last weekend, said the point of lining up Mack in different spots is “so (offenses) don’t always know he’s right there on the right side. That’s usually his side where he rushes, so it gives him a chance to get different looks.
“He’s smart enough to be able to do those things. When you have a player like that, you take advantage of it and you move him.”
The line will be tasked Sunday with corralling a more mobile quarterback in Geno Smith, at least to start. Pagano said he intends to have a “rush plan” drawn up for both Smith and Eli Manning, the highestprofile backup in the league this week.
“You have to be ready for everything,” Pagano said.
Coming off the field after sacking Lynch last week, Autry said Del Rio told him: “That’s a grown-ass man play.” Only Autry didn’t know exactly what had happened until he watched it on film that night.
“It was just one of those freak plays,” he said.
Ellis, for one, wasn’t surprised.
“I always demonstrate the O-lineman for him during the week,” Ellis said. “I can feel how strong he is and he’s not even, like, against me.
“We know Denico’s a good pass rusher, inside and outside. I just thought he did the things that we know he can do.”