Under Jon Gruden, the Raiders disappear in a statistical black hole



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Jon Gruden's second term with the Raiders did not have a good start. (Dan Istitene / Getty Images)

The return of Jon Gruden on the sidelines did not go well. The Super Bowl XXXVII champion, who had not been sidelined for a decade before the Oakland Raiders re-hired him, watched his team sparkle on both sides of the ball. The Raiders have won just one win in six games and have little or no chance to play in the playoffs.

"I will continue to focus on the good and do everything in my power to fix the problems because my fingerprints are everywhere," Gruden told NFL.com. "I have never been part of a cornering team like this one, nor of defensive linemen, kickers, or offensive attacks in five games of the season. It's difficult.

Hard indeed. Oakland not only lost Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, against 27-3 at Wembley Stadium in London, its worst loss since losing 52-0 to the St. Louis Rams in 2014, but quarterback Derek Carr will have to To recover from Wounded in the shoulder, he has to face the Colts of Indianapolis during the 8th week. Amari Cooper has a concussion. Other injured players include compatriots Seth Roberts and Martavis Bryant, cornerback Nick Nelson, defensive back Frostee Rucker, linebacker Bruce Irvin and offensive lineman Jon Feliciano. and Kelechi Osemele, running back DeAndre Washington and goaltender Karl Joseph.

These injuries have delayed Oakland, but more pressing issues are preventing the team from achieving anything important when Gruden returns to the NFL.

When Carr and Cooper are healthy, the Raiders can move the ball without a problem. They run nearly six games and produce nearly 33 yards per practice, 12th and 16th in the league this year. But they stagnate completely in the red zone: only 45% of these efforts end in a touchdown. Only the New York Giants, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Houston Texans and the New York Jets are worse. This led to a sad 1.5 points per disc.

Blame Carr on some of these problems. His completion rate is phenomenal (71.7%, just behind Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints, who has a record year), but his eight interceptions, for the most equal in the league , are troublesome. Overall, his total quarterback rating increased from 54.6 in 2016 to 51.0 in 2017 to 43.8 in 2018, which means his performance would allow him to win only seven of the 16 games in the season. regular this year. Do not believe it? Carr on average 0.1 yards per run Sunday against the Seahawks, with 13 attempts out of 31 thrown on or behind the line of scrimmage. Only two passes were thrown at a catcher more than 10 meters from the line of scrimmage. Neither was caught.

To be honest, the team's line of attack, out of the center, Rodney Hudson, does not give him any advantage. And that's up to Gruden and the front desk. They used the team's first-round pick against Kolton Miller and a third on the Brandon Parker attack, but none of them could stand out. In fact, among the players who play at least 25% of the shots on their team, Miller ranks last among the 74 qualified tackles, and Parker is not much better ranked in 58th place, according to the game's chart. Pro Football Focus – and Parker is the highest rated tackle in Oakland. !

As a result, Pro Football Focus ranks Oakland as the fifth-highest pass-blocking unit in the NFL, giving the group the responsibility of 72 bags, strikes and Carr races in six games. And when Carr is under pressure, his pass rate drops from 107.0 to 37.7 this year. A quarterback gets a pass score of 39.6 on an incomplete pass, illustrating how bad Carr was when the offensive line does not provide adequate protection.

With the attack producing few points, the defense would need a herculean effort to allow the Raiders to win a Sunday. Unfortunately for Gruden, he does not play well enough. Oakland allows 2.5 points per disc, fifth in the NFL, with overall performance down from No. 29 by value above the average adjusted by the defense of the football outsiders, which measures the effectiveness of a team by comparing the success of each match to the league average according to the situation and the opponent.

And the confidence of the coach in his defensive players deserves to be questioned. The most frequently deployed players should be your best. And yet, linebacker Tahir Whitehead and safety Marcus Gilchrist are the only defensive players to have played more than 80% of the defensive catch of the team, which is significantly less powerful. Whitehead ranks 47th among 52 qualified linebackers and Gilchrist is ranked 48th out of 56 qualifiers by Pro Football Focus.

Not only did the players that Gruden put on the field, but the star that he had, linebacker Khalil Mack, was traded to the Chicago Bears just before the 1st week, but Gruden lamented just how bad he was difficult to find a good pass. . Mack has five sacks in five games this year. The Oakland defensemen have a total of seven.

The question is how Gruden can reverse the situation. If Carr and Cooper are in good health, the Raiders should consider taking more shots on the court. While the Raiders have adopted short attacks from the west coast offensive, the league's main offenses tend to be much more frequent. The Chiefs and Falcons, two of the NFL's biggest offenses, are ranked second and fourth, respectively, for attempted aerial yards, targeting receivers at least nine yards from the line of scrimmage. Oakland ranks last (6.1 yards per attempt). Saints, chiefs, loaders and rams also have a high score for smugglers on deep throws (those 20 yards or more), while Raiders are ranked 23rd with a score of 74.1. less than the league average (91.6).

A sputtering attack and a bad defense mean that the Raiders are outclassed by nearly eight points per game after adjusting for the strength of the schedule, the eighth worst-adjusted point differential in franchise history. It's not exactly like you want the guy to have the last word on all the personnel issues to start the first season of a $ 100 million 10 year contract.

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