Silver And Black Pride
This early into the new regime, you have to give the Las Vegas Raiders coaching staff this: They come up with some noteworthy and downright hilarious descriptions of their players.
First it was head coach and chief offensive play caller Klint Kubiak dubbing elite tight end Brock Bowers a “football robot from heaven”. It was a description that not only the third-year Georgia product enjoyed, but his fellow Raiders found hilarious, too.
Then came defensive coordinator Rob Leonard talking up linebacker Quay Walker.
“I mean, I see Quay, he’s an Avatar out there,” Leonard began, “He’s a guy that looks like an outside linebacker that can play off the ball, play on the ball, he blitzes. Yeah, he’s a leader. Him and Nakobe (Dean) have been great, and you can definitely feel his presence.”
Interestingly enough, the Raiders’ football robot and Avatar are both former Georgia Bulldogs. But aligning to Las Vegas’ mantra this offseason of being on the same page, Bowers and Walker are expected to be prime examples of the position-less and hybrid philosophy being engrained in the Silver & Black this offseason. Kubiak’s penchant to run different plays out of identical alignments and formations — and mixing in motions and shifts — alongside Leonard’s desire to have his defense to attack by playing aggressive and fast from a multiple-front looks and deceptive blitz packages is what’s consistently talked about this offseason.
Walker provided more hints and insights on what that exactly means.
“Honestly, man, it’s a lot for offense going in that week ahead of it, so say for instance, it’s week one, and a team is just trying to get us together, whatever the case may be, and they present our defense. We have a lot of guys that played this, play that, they just move around in a lot of areas, so now it’s kind of hard to scout against us and tell what we are doing,” Walker explained when asked what’s the benefit of having defenders play multiple spots on the field. “Say for instance, I’m on the line, you never know if I’m going to drop or if I’m going to rush whether that’s to the field or the boundary. Same thing with (safety Jeremy) Chinn, (edge rusher Kwity (Paye), no matter what the case may be, Maxx (Crosby). Just a whole lot, it kind of helps and play hand in hand with the whole defense I’ll say.”
Now, if you have trepidation on the “multiple”, I don’t blame you.
My eyebrow raised as that was the same buzzword that Dennis Allen uttered constantly and consistently when he was hired as head coach of the Oakland variant of the Raiders back in 2012. He sought versatility and disguised coverages that showcased fluidity between 4-3 and 3-4 fronts and highlighted aggressiveness and attacking nature.
Sounds familiar, no?
That’s the same intent Leonard has this coming season. What helps the first-year defensive coordinator that Allen didn’t have as a rookie head coach at the...
