Silver And Black Pride
It’s time to flush the Las Vegas Raiders’ exciting win in the season opener and move on to a huge early-season AFC West matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday Night Football! But first, let’s get to this week’s mailbag.
A: In my opinion, Pete Carroll and Patrick Graham should absolutely try something/someone else other than Darnay Holmes at nickel moving forward. That spot was one of my big concerns this summer (Mike Hilton, still available, just sayin’!), and Holmes was the reason why.
Last year, he was waived by the New York Giants at the end of training camp and wasn’t good when the Raiders had him fill in for Nate Hobbs, so I don’t know what the front office was thinking by rolling with Holmes as the primary nickelback this season.
The problem is that there aren’t many other options on the roster. Maybe Kyu Blu Kelly slides inside while Darien Porter or Decamerion Richardson comes off the bench to fill in on the boundary, but Kelly is the defense’s best outside cornerback right now.
Besides bringing in a free agent like Hilton, the next best option would be to activate Greedy Vance from the practice squad. I don’t think that will happen this week, but if Holmes doesn’t pick it up soon, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Vance get called up at some point in the season.
Q: How much motion did Chip Kelly use against the Patriots? And any RPOs?
A: Kelly used pre-snap motion quite a bit, and I consulted my good friend and co-worker Marcus Johnson to get some numbers, shoutout Marcus!
Excluding kneel downs, the Raiders used motion on 54 percent of their total snaps and 51 percent of dropbacks. So, over half of their plays. They only had two RPOs, but used play-action on 32.5 percent of Geno Smith’s dropbacks, which was the seventh-most in the NFL for Week 1, per Pro Football Focus.
Since I know this gets mixed up often, here’s an explanation of the difference between RPOs and play action in case anyone needs it.
R-P-O stands for run-pass option, meaning the offensive line and running back are executing a run play while the wide receivers run routes for a pass play, and the quarterback decides to either hand the ball off or throw it based on what the defense is doing. Play action is a pass play no matter what; it just includes a run fake.
If you’re ever confused about a play being an RPO or play-action pass, watch the offensive line. If the linemen are run blocking and working up to the linebackers, it’s an RPO because they’re executing a run play. But if they’re making a conscious effort to stay behind the line of scrimmage, it’s a play-action pass. Also, you’ll never see a deep throw on an RPO since the linemen are working downfield. It’s almost always a quick game concept so that the quarterback gets the ball out before a lineman...
