Silver And Black Pride
We made it! The long road from the offseason to the regular season is finally over, and our reward is getting to watch some Las Vegas Raiders football! Week 1 brings an interesting matchup for the Raiders, squaring off against the New England Patriots and several familiar faces.
But before that, we have this week’s mailbag to get to.
Q: How do you hide your linebackers in coverage and stop teams from targeting Elandon Roberts and Devin White with play-action on early downs? Kyle Shanahan laid out a blueprint on how to move the ball against the Raiders’ defense.
A: Besides simply taking them off the field and heavily leaning on nickel (five defensive backs, two linebackers) and/or dime (six defensive backs, one linebacker) personnel, the easiest way (in my opinion) is to run a lot of Cover 1. That way, at least one of the linebackers is the low-hole defender, meaning their primary responsibility is to support the defensive backs on any throws to the middle of the field, rather than be responsible for covering a man or area of the field by themselves.
Granted, unless the defense is in dime, there still will be one linebacker who is in man coverage. But typically, that will be against a running back who is on a checkdown route or stays in the backfield for pass protection. Teams that run a lot of wheel routes out of the backfield or have a back that’s heavily involved in the passing game can still exploit that matchup, though.
So, Cover 1 isn’t a perfect solution, but you’re at least minimizing the risk. Also, the defense has to have defensive backs who can be sticky in coverage consistently, which is hard to do/find.
The other way to hide linebackers in coverage is by muddying the pre-snap look for the quarterback. That can be achieved by having the backers line up on the line of scrimmage, so they must be accounted for in the protection scheme. Then, they can drop into coverage or rush the passer with someone else, like an edge rusher, dropping into coverage. In other words, a simulated pressure.
Also, simply disguising the coverage by showing a two-safety look pre-snap and rotating to one-high post-snap, or vice versa. Basically, changing the picture on the quarterback or mixing things up so that he has to think and read the defense on the fly, rather than knowing where he can go with the ball before it’s snapped. I think this will be the strategy for Pete Carroll and Patrick Graham this season, given that the Raiders’ secondary also has question marks.
Q: Which linebackers do you expect to play on passing downs?
A: That’s a good question, and one I’m curious about, too. My best guess would be Geramine Pratt and Jamal Adams, with Devin White mixed in as a potential pass-rusher/blitzer.
Using the Cover 1 example above, Pratt can be decent at helping take away the middle of the field by making plays...
