Greg Olson – Page 2 – Syndication Server

Baller & Busters for Raiders Week 6 vs Broncos

It was a statement game for the Raiders in Denver. With Gruden out and Rich Bisaccia in place as interim head coach, no one really knew how the Raiders would respond. They could collapse monumentally or they could come together and play inspired football. It was very much the latter.

The team had their first opening-drive score since week 11 of last season. It was a touchdown too. Then they kept it going to stop their trend of slow starts this season. They scored 17 in the first half and 17 in the second half, while the defense ensured the Broncos couldn’t close the gap.

They finished by scoring their most points of the season (34) and had the game iced midway through the fourth quarter.

Plenty of credit to go around for this dominant performance.

Ballers

DE Maxx Crosby

Five sacks. That’s how many the Raiders had. And Crosby was in on all of them. He shared a sack with Quinton Jefferson on the first drive and added a QB hit that forced a bad pass. His second sack was all his and led to a stalled drive. Then he and Jefferson teamed up again to end the first half with the Raiders taking a 17-7 lead into the locker room.

The first play of the second half was Crosby being held on a play he would have stuffed in the backfield otherwise. The next drive he teamed up with Cory Littleton for his third sack. That drive stalled for a field goal. The next drive ended with Crosby pressuring Bridgewater who tried to scramble and fumbled it away.

On the first drive of the fourth quarter, he batted a pass down at the line to set up third and 20. But the Broncos would end up converting on fourth down and finish with a touchdown to pull within two scores. The Raiders brought it back to a three-score game with eight minutes left. on the second play of the Broncos’ attempt to respond, Crosby stuffed a run for a loss. Two plays later, on third and 11, Bridgewater was picked off to put this one on ice.

Crosby finished with six tackles, 3.0 sacks, one tackle for loss, and one pass breakup. The five sacks he was in on were reminiscent of a former Raiders great on a trip to Denver.

QB Derek Carr, OC Greg Olson, Henry Ruggs III

Carr had to execute this offense without Gruden. And Olson had to step into play-calling duties for the first time in five years. And they killed it. The offense opened up and worked like a well-oiled machine from start to finish for the first time this season.

The first drive was capped by a 48-yard touchdown pass from Carr to Ruggs on a deep post. The next drive ended in a score as well, highlighted by a 25-yard hookup with Hunter Renfrow and ended with a 50-yard field goal. And the final drive of the first half saw Carr throw a majestic perfect strike to Kenyan Drake for a 31-yard touchdown.

Carr and Olson kept it going on the first possession of the third quarter. On the second play, Olson made the perfect call for a screen — something we didn’t much of under Gruden. The Broncos brought the house just as the Raiders wanted, Carr dropped it over them to Josh Jacobs and he had an entourage of blockers for a 29-yard screen play. Two plays later the Raiders scored.

At the end of the third quarter, the Raiders capitalized on a turnover. Carr dropped back on third and 12 under pressure and launched a rainbow. It wasn’t a great pass, but at worst it gets picked, which would have been the equivalent of a punt. But it wasn’t picked. Ruggs tracked it down, and even tripped over the defender, and still managed to catch it for a 40-yard completion. Two plays later, they punched it in for another touchdown to take a 31-10 lead.

31 points were already more than the Raiders had scored in regulation all season. And it was still the third quarter.

With the Broncos scoring again, the Raiders needed just one score to put the game away. On third and six, Carr threw a perfect pass to Bryan Edwards along the left sideline and he streaked up the sideline for 51 yards. That put the team inside the 20 and a few plays later a short field goal put the Raiders back at a three-score lead while setting a new high for points scored on the season. And that includes the OT games.

Carr finished with 341 yards passing on 18 completions, which is an incredible 18.9 yards per completion. Ruggs had three catches for 97 yards, two of which were huge completions leading to two touchdowns.

DT Solomon Thomas, DT Quinton Jefferson, DT Damion Square

Jefferson teamed up with Crosby on two sacks. He led the interior Dline with four tackles and had two QB hits. Square shared a sack with Crosby as well and had three QB hits and two tackles. Thomas had three QB hits and forced a fumble.

Jefferson’s second shared sack ended the first half. One of Thomas’s QB hits ended their first possession of the third quarter and nearly led to an interception. His forced fumble was recovered by the Raiders and they started their drive at the Denver 42 and took advantage with a touchdown.

RB Kenyan Drake

Quite an efficient day for Drake. He played just 12 snaps and touched the ball six times. Those touches were a six-yard run, a nine-yard run, an 8-yard catch, a 31-yard TD catch, an 18-yard TD run, and a one-yard run after the game was in hand. That’s 73 yards and two touchdowns. Have yourself a day, Kenyan.

LB Cory Littleton

Tied for the team lead with 11 tackles. He started a three-and-out by the Broncos in the second quarter with an open-field tackle to stop a catch for one yard. And he teamed up with Crosby for a sack that stalled a Broncos drive in the third quarter. On the Broncos’ final scoring drive, Littleton did his part. He made the stop on third and 20, but they converted on fourth down. On the next play, he batted down in the end zone on the next play.

CB Brandon Facyson, DB Roderic Teamer

Less than two weeks since joining the team, and on his fourth defensive snap, Facyson had an interception. It was the first of his career and just the second interception by the Raiders this season.

That turnover was made possible because Teamer made the stop short on the sticks on third down the play before. At the end of the second quarter, Teamer made the tackle on a catch well short of the first down on third and 16 to force a punt. The Raiders got the ball back with just over a minute and drove for a touchdown before the half.

In the third quarter, Teamer had tight coverage to force an incompletion in the back of the end zone and force the Broncos to settle for a field goal. And after the Raiders went up 34-17, Facyson knocked down a pass to set up third and 11. Bridgewater was picked by Tre’von Moehrig on his ensuing desperation throw.

Honorable Mention

S Tre’von Moehrig — Had the first interception of his career. Nearly had two, but the first was knocked out of his hands. Also didn’t give up any catches and had three tackles.

CB Casy Hayward — Continued to prove he’s the best cornerback on this team. He had a pass breakup on a deep pass and gave up just two catches for 24 yards. Also forced a couple of penalties on a push-off and a blindside block.

Busters

CB Amik Robertson

Robertson got the start again with Trayvon Mullen and Damon Arnette both injured. He lasted nine snaps before he was pulled in favor of Brandon Facyson.

Yes, nine snaps. That’s because in those nine snaps, he gave up a seven-yard catch, a 14-yard catch on third and 12, a 23-yard touchdown catch, and missed a tackle on a ten-yard run.

Those nine snaps weren’t the end of his day. He played four more snaps over the remainder of the game. And on one of those four snaps, he missed another tackle to give up a 30-yard run that set up the Broncos’ second score. Being almost wholly responsible for two scores — the only two scores the Broncos had over the first three quarters — is a brutal 13 snaps.

SS Johnathan Abram

The interception was cool and all. Though it was a desperation heave with the game already out of reach, so it was just window dressing. What was not nice was the five catches for 63 yards he gave up. Those included a 14-yard catch on the Broncos’ second scoring drive and a 26-yard catch on their third scoring drive.

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New play caller Greg Olson ‘crushed it’ as Raiders ride fast start to cruise past Broncos

Even with the Raiders starting this season out 3-0, they were plagued by slow starts. Those slow starts would jump up and bite them as they lost two straight games to the Chargers and Bears.

Those first five games extended a streak by the Raiders of 11 straight games in which they failed to score on their opening drive dating back to week 11 of the 2020 season.

Then Jon Gruden resigned. And that streak ended.

Gruden was calling all the plays during his time as head coach, while Greg Olson was more of a strategist as the offensive coordinator. But with Gruden out, Olson stepped into the play calling duties. And the offense came to life.

Not only did the scoreless open drive streak end, the slow starts were also put to bed soundly. The Raiders drove for a touchdown on their opening drive. Then they drove for field goals on their next two drives. The second of which, Daniel Carlson missed off the right upright.

That didn’t trip them up, though. In the second quarter, Carr threw a gorgeous, perfect pass right into the arms of Kenyan Drake for a 31-yard statement touchdown as the first half ended.

It extended the Raiders lead to 17-7, making for just the second time this season they had the lead at the half. The other time was when they held a 9-7 lead over the Steelers at the half of their week two game.

How the Raiders were able to start the season 3-0 was by finishing games strong. But there was no simple flip of strong start vs strong finish in this one. The Raiders simply kept it going, matching their first half with another 17 points in the second half. Starting with Drake scoring again, this time on the ground from 18 yards out.

Prior to this game, Drake hadn’t scored a touchdown. He had two in this game with a season-high 73 total yards.

“He just kind of really just made everything a little simpler,” Drake said Olson’s offense. “We didn’t come into the week with a lot of dropbacks, a lot of different things like that. We just reduced the amount of things that we had to worry about. We just went out there and played ball. But other than that, it’s the same offense. It’s not going to really change. Got the same quarterback, the same playmakers on that side of the ball.”

That second TD by Drake was set up by 29-yard screen play to Josh Jacobs. Screen plays aren’t often that exciting, but we haven’t seen them much in this offense. This one was called perfectly and execute with equal perfection. The Broncos brought the house, the Raiders line let the through and Jacobs had a convoy. Two plays later, paydirt.

By the end of the third quarter, the Raiders had scored 31 points, which was the most points they have scored in regulation all season. The offense was working like a well-oiled machine. Something it hadn’t done much of over the past couple weeks.

“I thought he was great,” Carr said of Olson. “I thought he had a great flow of the game. His communication, his tone in the headset. There’s so many little things that matter, especially for quarterbacks. He was getting the plays into me so early, so that I have time at the line of scrimmage either to go fast, or I can push the tempo or I can trick them. We had an offsides because I can push the tempo and get the guys where I need to get them, stuff like that. It was very smooth.”

Then with a fourth quarter field goal, they put the game away while making this their highest scoring game of the season, including their two overtime wins. And Carr went over 300 yards passing (341) for the first time in three weeks.

After the game, interim head coach Rich Bisaccia seemed to downplay how dominant the offense was in the first game without Gruden, suggesting it was at least in part to the Denver defense’s inability to game plan for Olson.

“Advantage to us is this is the first game Oly has called in a while, so they really didn’t have…they were trying to figure out what we were going to do,” Bisaccia said. “I’ve been with Oly before where he’s called every play. And it was collective. I thought we ran the ball better, so I thought we had a little more play action look to us today. And we moved Derek out of the pocket a little bit. Offensively those guys did a great job with that. It was fun to watch. Oly did a great job.”

Yeah, there was more play action and more of other things that make the offense more unpredictable and thus more dynamic. Quite the concept.

All in all, Olson took the baton and ran with it as Raiders play caller. And in a difficult situation to be certain.

“For everything that he had to deal with this week, and then being thrust into calling plays for the first time in a while, I thought he crushed it, honestly,” Carr said of Olson. “I thought he was great. His demeanor on the sideline, all that, he was awesome.”

Vikings coach Mike Zimmer talks about the Seahawks’ high-octane offense

Do you think Seattle will let Russ cook against the Vikings?

In 2019, the Seahawks beat the Vikings in the ground game.

Seattle ran for 218 yards as it rolled to a 37-30 victory. Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson threw for just 240 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.

But since then, the Seahawks have undergone a bit of a philosophical change on offense. Some Seattle fans have called for the team to “let Russ cook” and the Seahawks have done just that through the first four games of the 2020 season.

He has thrown for 1,285 yards, 16 touchdown passes and just two interceptions so far. It looks like the Vikings’ young secondary is going to have to go up against a version of the Seahawks that attacks through the air.

Minnesota coach Mike Zimmer talked about Seattle’s changes in 2020:

“They’ve changed a little bit. They’re obviously letting Russell Wilson be more explosive,” Zimmer told reporters, via the Vikings. “They’ve got terrific receivers. T hey’re all fast. David Moore has made some great catches. (Greg) Olsen as a tight end, I think that’s helped them. And they’ve still got (Chris) Carson as the runner. And obviously Russell makes them go.”

As bad as Minnesota’s run defense looked against Seattle last season, this year the Seahawks should be an even more difficult matchup due to their high-octane offense. It could be a long game on Sunday night.

For Raiders QB Derek Carr, creativity outside the pocket still a work in progress

Raiders quarterback Derek Carr is still tasked with doing more to impress his head coach, Jon Gruden.

When Raiders coach Jon Gruden rejoined the franchise in 2018, he said the job was appealing, in part, because of quarterback Derek Carr.

But it appears there’s still a bit of work to do if Carr is to tap into the full potential of Gruden’s offense.

Since his return, Gruden has tried to mold Carr into his ideal QB. Carr, by all accounts, has done what he can to absorb his coach’s lessons.

For instance, Carr adapted to Gruden’s demand to mitigate risk and avoid turnovers, and his completion percentage hit a career-high in 2019. But as Gruden stymied any gunslinger mentality that Carr possessed, there were growing pains.

The Raiders’ 2018 loss in Miami against the Dolphins is one example. With three minutes to play and a 1st-and-goal situation, Carr threw a risky pass to former Raiders wide receiver, Martavis Bryant. The ball was intercepted, and the Raiders lost, 28-20. Gruden voiced his displeasure with the play postgame, of course.

Carr’s decision-making in the pocket slowly improved after that game, however, and it’s hard to imagine him making another such throw on first-and-goal in the future.

But there’s yet another trait that Gruden wants Carr to possess. It also involves decision making, but after the play breaks down.

Offensive coordinator Greg Olson, who is always on the same page as Gruden, said Carr can still improve his ability to gain yards when the unexpected happens.

“[I] want to see him create and I think if you said that about Derek’s career, can he be more creative?” Olson said via conference call on Tuesday. “When a play breaks down, can you get out and create and be the play after the play call? That’s been an emphasis. He sees it, he’s athletic enough that he can create with his legs, so we are just working on him to create more outside the pocket.”

As Olson noted, Carr is certainly athletic enough to be a threat when the play breaks down, which keeps the defense on their toes and slows their aggression. Also as Olson mentioned, Carr is aware of the situation. The QB was asked about his ability to create offense after Olson’s comments on Tuesday.

“Before coach Gruden got here, I barely did it,” said Carr via conference call, after learning of Olson’s critique. “I’m going to sit in the pocket. These reads are going to beat you and my arm is going to beat you. Then he came in and the first year was a struggle just trying to figure out how to move and run around in the pocket. Then last year happens … and we’re getting more first downs with my legs. We’re winning football games with me scrambling. The arrow is trending up. But we want to still do more.”

Fortunately for Carr, it shouldn’t take much more to unleash the full potential of Gruden’s offense. With his skills inside the pocket, merely being a consistent threat to leave the tackle box and make a positive play — even it’s just a few yards — is enough to make an impact.

That skill is simply a must if Gruden’s ball-control offense is to reach its max potential. And if a QB with Carr’s athleticism can evade sacks and avoid a loss, he’ll eventually begin to break plays for decent yardage, or even better, hit his targets on the run with regularity.

Even as Carr attempts to improve in that area, Gruden has made it clear how much he covets such a quarterback. Before facing Andrew Luck and the Colts in 2018, Gruden raved about Luck’s ability to create offense when the play goes awry.

“That’s what I think the great quarterbacks do. They don’t just make the throws and fix plays at the line of scrimmage. When’s there’s no blocking or nobody open, he can still make big plays,” Gruden said.

Additionally, during Week 14 of the same campaign, Gruden said there are natural QB scrambling lanes in his offense when skill players are double-teamed, especially if it’s the tight end or running back.

In 2019, Carr’s progress off-the-cuff was a focus on the first day of training camp, with a scramble by the QB making news. Later in the same camp, Gruden prepared Carr for unblocked pass-rushers by running into Carr’s face himself while shouting instructions at his pupil.

The effort yielded some results during the season that followed, as Carr mentioned. In the Raiders’ loss in Oakland to the Jaguars, Carr scrambled from the pocket when his team needed a first down to put the game away, and it appeared he did enough to win. Unfortunately, due to a questionable call from the official, the Raiders lost that game, their last in Oakland.

But that consistent threat has to develop if he’s to take another step at QB. And it appears Gruden needs to see more progress if his wandering eye for signal-callers is to subside.

The coach’s affection for dual-threat quarterbacks dates back, at least, to former Raiders QB Rich Gannon, who was in Oakland with Gruden from 1999-01. Recently, Gruden had rumored interest in former Oklahoma QB and 2019 Rookie of the Year, Kyler Murray.

And Gruden brought an experienced, dual-threat QB to Las Vegas, Marcus Mariota, to compete with Carr. As a draft analyst, the coach raved about Mariota, as did Raiders general manager, Mike Mayock.

Carr is still the clear choice as starter, but he’d do well to improve in this area, shutting the door on talk of a possible demotion that followed the Mariota signing. Such rumors will continue until Carr leads the Raiders to the playoffs, signs an extension or is let go.

Amazingly, though Carr is in his seventh year as the Raiders’ starting QB and the franchise’s all-time leader in passing yards, he’s still a work in progress regarding a skill his coach covets. It’s his third year in Gruden’s offense, however. Carr’s never had such continuity in his career, which bodes well for his chances.

Still, it doesn’t figure to be easy, even if Carr only has to show consistent, competent ability outside the pocket. It’s not a rudimentary skill. As Gruden said, it’s a trait shared by great quarterbacks.

But Carr will give it all he’s got. It’s his job to realize the potential of the Raiders offense, and if he does so in 2020, he could be Gruden’s long-term solution at quarterback, and they can both finish what they started in 2018.

Raiders have ‘good problems’ with an influx of talent of offense

Raiders OC Greg Olson wasn’t complaining, but he and coach Jon Gruden have a lot of work to do in piecing together the offense.

After struggling to field a full wide receiver unit at times during the 2019 campaign, the Raiders are flush with young playmakers as they hit their first year in Las Vegas.

But is it possible for there to be too much of a good thing?

The Raiders aggressively added skill players to their offense this offseason, starting with their No. 1 draft pick, lighting-fast wide receiver, Henry Ruggs III.

Las Vegas wasn’t nearly done. The doubled and then tripled down on their strategy, selecting versatile playmaker, Lynn Bowden Jr, and WR Bryan Edwards on back-to-back picks in the third round.

Coach Jon Gruden and general manager Mike Mayock also brought former Cowboys tight end, Jason Witten into the fold. And there are talented players already on the roster that need the football to thrive. Will one pigskin be enough for this group?

Offensive coordinator Greg Olson said he loves the competition across the board, and he also said that staying true to the Raiders’ style of offense while diversifying the playbook and personnel groupings is no easy task.

“It’s been difficult,” Olson said during a Zoom call with media Tuesday. “Coach Gruden has mentioned that this morning in scripting plays and using the different personnel groupings. How much do we use the 13 personnel or the 22 personnel, 11 personnel? Again, it’s more about depth and building depth at every position, the skill positions as well as the offensive line. A lot of good problems to try to solve here during training camp.”

Olson also said he didn’t want to leave fullback Alex Ingold out of the equation, either, and Witten makes 12 and 13 personnel stronger, which is another factor to consider.

With Olson mentioning Tuesday that Bowden Jr., who played quarterback in college, is spending time in the QB room as well as the running back room, there are indeed plenty of options for Raiders offense to sort out in 2020.

But with the foundation set a year ago, the Raiders’ new pieces should fall into place fairly easily. Led by QB Derek Carr, the Raiders averaged 5.9 yards per play in 2019, a very respectable rate.

If the offense can uphold that level of execution and add an abundance of talent, the results should reflect the investment made on offense, especially in the red zone, where the Raiders struggled in 2019. Versatility is beneficial near the goalline, even more so when Las Vegas has one of the best running backs in the NFL in Josh Jacobs and a proven offensive line.

While Olson and Gruden do have their work cut out for them, having so many options is a problem they’re undoubtedly ready for. If all goes according to plan, there will be plenty of yards and touchdowns for the Raiders’ skill players to divvy up.

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