Silver And Black Pride
Cornerback hard arguably his best game of the season
While the Las Vegas Raiders suffered another disappointing loss in their 20-15 Week 7 defeat against the Los Angeles Rams, the Raiders’ defense played well and got key contributions from several players. One in particular who stood out was cornerback Nate Hobbs as he had arguably his best performance of the season.
Hobbs finished with a 79.9 defensive grade from Pro Football Focus, which was the third-best on the team and ranked ninth (pre-Monday Night Football) among all cornerbacks for the week. A big reason for that is he yielded just 12 yards on three targets (two catches) and had his first interception of the campaign to earn an 83.4 mark in coverage, the latter also ranking ninth at his position.
Perhaps even more impressively, the fourth-year pro ended a streak of four consecutive games with a missed tackle and logged four ‘defensive stops’ which is tied for the second-most among corners.
So, let’s flip on the tape and break down Hobbs’ performance.
As a run defender, Hobbs had several reps where he timed up the blitz perfectly or read the play to make impact tackles near the line of scrimmage.
This clip is a great example as it’s fourth and 1. The Rams motion their outside slot receiver across the formation which allows Tre’von Moehrig to take care of the other slot receiver (No. 5 lined up on the hash mark) and frees up Hobbs to blitz.
Post-snap, Hobbs doesn’t hesitate and crashes hard downhill, attacking the backside B-gap against Los Angeles’ power run call. So, he’s unblocked and with some help via a strong rep from Adam Butler and the playside defenders, the running back goes down short of the sticks for the turnover on downs.
This is a good play call from Patrick Graham and even better execution from Hobbs.
This is a similar rep where the Rams motion a receiver across the formation, giving Hobbs the freedom to blitz off the edge. He crashes hard downhill again and stays tight to the line of scrimmage once he crosses the offense line. That allows him to make another tackle for a short gain, this time for about a yard and a half.
There were a few other reps just like this one that could have been included as Hobbs stood out as a blitzer on Sunday.
This next play may not go down as a “defensive stop” since the tackle was made several yards down the field. But make no mistake about it, this is a high-quality rep that gives the defense a good chance to get off the field on third down.
It’s second and 10 as Los Angeles runs an end around to the slot receiver while the running back is the lead blocker. The back does a good job of pinning the cornerback (Jakorian Bennett) inside and then picking up and widening the linebacker (Divine Deablo) to the sideline.
However, Hobbs is in man coverage...
