Davante Adams caught only four passes for 45 yards in the Raiders’ Week 5 win over the Packers. Overall, Green Bay’s defense did a great job in coverage against arguably the best receiver in the NFL, but one play in particular somewhat besmirched what should have been remembered as a strong performance.
Adams’ biggest catch of the game went for 21 yards during the third quarter. The yards gained aren’t so much the issue, considering it’s tough to contain Adams for four quarters. Rather, the problem is who it came against.
On the play in question, Adams was lined up in the slot. Meanwhile, Green Bay deployed a variation of Cover 3 and had outside linebacker Preston Smith covering Adams. Needless to say, Smith didn’t stand a chance.
Davante Adams 1v1 vs. Preston Smith
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Coach Matt LaFleur was asked about the play the following day. LaFleur pointed back to the three seasons he spent with Adams (2019-21) when they would move him around to try and get advantageous matchups. Naturally, it’s far less fun when you’re on the other side of them.
“Yeah, that’s happened a lot when Davante was playing for us: You put a receiver in the slot — you get ‘penny,’ or five bigs on the field, and a lot of times that ‘backer has to walk and you’re playing quarters coverage and that’s what happens,” LaFleur said. “Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s obviously not the most advantageous for us, so whether we can get a check and get out of that look for us, but credit to them.
“That just happens sometimes, but obviously want to have better answers than that.”
The man responsible for the call, Joe Barry, could not comment while the Packers were on a bye week. Fortunately, all three coordinators were back and made available to the media on Monday.
Green Bay’s defensive coordinator addressed why Smith was matched up with Adams and not corner Jaire Alexander, who was on the opposite side of the field covering fullback Jakob Johnson.
“I wish it was that easy,” said Barry. “We called a coverage that required Preston to drop, and he happened to be a boundary dropper, and (Las Vegas) happened to put Tae at slot into the boundary. Sometimes, you’ll have mechanisms where you’ll have checks or things built in where you can get out of that. We simply, based on the personnel we were in and the personnel that they were in, we didn’t have that mechanism.”
To Barry’s point, changing coverage can be tricky based on who is on the field. In this case, you just have to do your best if you’re Smith.
“If you’re Preston, you almost just have to survive the down and try to keep it to as minimal as you can, but that’s a poor matchup for him to be in and that’s totally on me. For us to be able to put him in that situation, we got to have a mechanism to get out of it.”
So why not just let the closest corner, in this case, Rasul Douglas, switch places with Smith? According to Barry, that would have required Smith to drop into a deep third zone, which would have been even worse.
The Raiders scored four plays later to go up 17-13. Green Bay failed to regain the lead despite having three chances in the fourth quarter. Looking back, the defense played valiantly to keep them in the game, but the completion to Adams was a crucial play that could have been avoided. Instead, it set up the go-ahead score.
“You have mechanisms to survive the down, but I didn’t give them one,” Barry said. “It was probably the worst play of the night, unfortunately.”