RAIDERS Zone mistakes are an ‘easy fix,’ cornerback says
On Sunday, cornerback Lamarcus Joyner said “miscommunications” on defense had played a role in the Raiders allowing 28 secondquarter points in a loss to Kansas City.
Joyner’s point, in part, was that the Raiders’ secondary had not been simply outmatched by the speed of the Chiefs’ offense.
On Monday, after reviewing the Raiders’ 2810 loss, Joyner reiterated that stance.
“You all can go turn on the film,” Joyner said. “When you see us in singlehigh (safety coverage) and we’re matching 1on1 with those guys, we did well. But when we did a few different zone things, where they kind of schemed us up to make us communicate, they got big chunk plays.”
The Chiefs had six plays of 25plus yards in the second quarter alone, all on passes by quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who threw touchdown passes of 44, 42, 39 and 27 yards.
Mahomes’ first two touchdowns went to receivers who broke open over the top of the Raiders’ defense. His next two were to targets who appeared to be singlecovered by defensive backs down the field.
Joyner, a defensive captain, said he thought the Raiders mostly did well in mantoman situations but paid for lapses in broader coverages.
“If you go turn on the film, man, and you show me a play where they just physically dominated us to score a touchdown, or just beat us singlehandedly, then hats off to them,” Joyner said.
“I think outside of those miscommunications and technical errors — that’s an easy fix once we master and be perfect in practice — it’d be a huge, tremendous turnaround in that game. But you can’t get it back. We’ve got to move forward and keep growing and building momentum.”
There were extremes to the Raiders’ defensive performance Sunday. The Chiefs averaged 36.1 yards on their eight longest plays of the game and 2.9 yards on their other 60 plays. Mahomes threw for 443 yards despite the Raiders limiting the Kansas City running game (22 rushes, 31 yards).
Head coach Jon Gruden said Monday that he thinks the Raiders’ defense, which ranked 30th against the run and 29th in opponent passer rating last season, is “getting better.”
“I think we have more speed,” Gruden said. “I think we made some great 1on1 tackles. (The Chiefs) make you defend every blade of grass, laterally with all the (runpass options) and jetsweep threats they have. And vertically, this kid Mahomes can drop some bombs on you from all over the field.”
Gruden said Sunday that the Raiders “didn’t get enough pressure” against Mahomes, who was sacked twice in 46 dropbacks. Gruden referenced the pass rush Monday when asked why defensive end Arden Key, who was expected to specialize this season in rushing the quarterback on passing downs, played just 24 snaps against the Chiefs.
“Arden, if you’re listening, we’ve got to get you going,” Gruden said. “He’s a good player. He’s had a good training camp. He’s healthy. We put our defensive line in some tough spots (Sunday) for a lot of reasons to try to stop their running game. And it did stymie, I think, some of the guys’ ability to rush the passer. But Arden’s going to take off, hopefully soon.”
Few teams feature as potent an offense as the Chiefs, and the Raiders’ next few games could offer a slight reprieve. The Vikings, Colts and Bears ranked 20th, seventh and 21st in total offense in 2018, respectively, and the Colts achieved their ranking with the recently retired Andrew Luck under center.
Joyner said the Raiders’ run defense Sunday was an encouraging sign, and also a challenge of sorts to the defensive backs.
“Now we know as a secondary we just have to master our techniques and fundamentals in practice, knowing that we can hang our hats on the Dline and linebackers stopping the run,” Joyner said. “So now, the games are going to be on us.”
At one point, Joyner was reminded of former Raiders owner Al Davis’ fondness for press mantoman coverage.
“We’ve got the guys to do that,” Joyner said. “I’ll tell you one thing, my guys are running a mile every day after practice. We are going to get our cardio together and we’re going to get after people.”