With the bye week, the Raiders have had an extra week to enjoy their big win over the Chiefs at Arrowhead. It may have been no coincidence that the game also saw Henry Ruggs III return from the knee injury that had cost him the previous two games. But simply returning to the lineup wouldn’t have been enough. It was more than that.
What we saw in that game was something we had not seen before. What we saw was Derek Carr and Ruggs on the same page. They connected in a way I had yet to see them, even throughout training camp. The result was two big-time catches for 118 yards and a touchdown.
“It reminds me of the threats I had in college,” Carr said after the Chiefs game. . . “to know you have a guy that runs 4.1-4.2 and the knowledge that he knows what route to run and if we get the look we want to get, he can win. Having that confidence it doesn’t matter what’s going on with anything else, if I just sit there and make my read, we have a chance to make the play.”
Ruggs’s first catch of the game, he went over the back of the defender for 46 yards. The second was a deep shot in which Carr hit him in stride for a 72-yard touchdown.
Had Carr and Ruggs been in sync earlier in the season, that would have been their second deep touchdown connection. The first attempt was in the season opener in which there was a busted coverage allowing Ruggs was to break wide open, but Carr’s pass didn’t lead Ruggs enough and when he slowed up to catch it, it allowed the defender to stop him short of the goal line.
Deep shots are what everyone, including the Raiders, envisioned from Ruggs when they made him the first wide receiver taken in the 2020 draft. Granted, it’s a big part of it, but just having straight-line speed is not enough to have made him their top pick.
“We didn’t bring him in here to run hitch routes,” said head coach Jon Gruden. “He can really run and we’ve got to be better at getting him the ball in other areas, because he’s a great route runner.”
Offensive coordinator Greg Olson talked about playing Ruggs in the slot early in camp. We have yet to see that get going, but one area often begets another, so we could see them connect underneath as well. You get them guarding against the deep ball, and it opens up other areas. And vice versa.
Ultimately, it was just one game, and one deep pass in stride. But it was the first we’ve seen of it, so it suggests it could be the start of something.
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