After a few weeks of training camp, the Raiders are encouraged by their defense and all the pieces they’ve added. Adding a proven defensive coach like Gus Bradley, on top of free-agent signings like Yannick Ngakoue and Casey Hayward as the team believing they won’t finish among the worst units in the NFL.
However, not everyone is convinced that this group will be significantly better in 2021. There are still a ton of questions at defensive tackle and in the secondary as the team is relying on several young players to make a leap.
In a recent piece by Sheil Kapadia of The Athletic, he broke down every team’s defense heading into the 2021 season and ranked them from 1-32. The Raiders did not finish high, coming in at No. 27. Here is a snippet of his thoughts on the unit:
“(Gus) Bradley comes from the Pete Carroll tree, and if history is any indication, he’ll employ a Cover-3 scheme that will count on a four-man pass rush to get home. Bradley will be tasked with getting linebacker Cory Littleton to make more plays than he did last year, and he’ll have to find a role for safety Johnathan Abram that masks his coverage limitations.
On paper, the Raiders are talented enough to be better than this ranking reflects. But I’ve been duped before and need to see it to believe it.”
The last paragraph perfectly describes the Raiders going into the 2021 season. It’s clearly a better roster, but until we actually see them stop teams, it’s tough to project them much better than this.
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