Tag: red zone efficiency

Can Derek Carr really improve the Saints’ red zone offense?

Only 8 teams had worse red zone efficiency than Derek Carr and the Raiders last season. And the Saints weren’t one of them.

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Sometimes the timing of things just seems like more than a coincidence. For instance, I saw this tweet the other day and it drew a bit of a side eye.

Wait, Derek Carr will *improve* a team’s red zone efficiency? Color me skeptical.

For those unfamiliar, Carr has always had issues in the red zone. It’s one of those things he’s known for round these parts, like fumbling while diving for the pylon.

But OK, so if this guy thinks Carr is the answer to the Saints’ red zone woes, the Saints must be worse off than the Raiders in that area.

Not so much.

Here’s where that more-than-coincidental seeming timing comes into play. Just 21 hours later, this was posted, giving us all the red zone percentages of all 32 NFL teams.

As you can see, the Saints were actually better in the red zone last season (41%) without Derek Carr than the Raiders were (40%) with Carr.

Mind you, that was with the trio of Andy Dalton, Jameis Winston and Taysom Hill lining up behind center in New Orleans.

Equally interesting is the position of Josh McDaniels’s old team in these rankings.

By far the worst team in the NFL in red zone efficiency was the Patriots at 31%. Clearly the Patriots are not better off without McDaniels running the offense. I mean, if you’re thinking it was the offensive scheme in Las Vegas that was holding Carr back.

But who knows? Maybe the Saints can catch lightning in a bottle and Dennis Allen can get the kind of red zone abilities no other Raiders coach — including himself — could consistently get from Carr.

Raiders and Jaguars face off with same win total and one glaring issue in common

There’s one glaring issue Raiders and Jaguars have in common that has contributed to 2-win season so far.

In Jacksonville Sunday two teams will face off with both looking to climb their way out of the NFL cellar. The Raiders and Jaguars each sit with two wins on the season. The only thing separating them in the fact that the Raiders (2-5) have had their bye week and therefore one fewer loss than the Jaguars (2-6).

Each team’s season started very different. The Jaguars jumped out to a 2-1 start while the Raiders began the season as 0-3, becoming the last team in the league to get their first win.

Since then, the Jaguars haven’t pulled out a win, while the Raiders have gone 2-2 in the last four, but are coming off their worst game in a long time in New Orleans. They were shut out by the Saints 24-0 and the Raiders didn’t even play a snap in opposing territory until the final drive when the Saints let them run out the clock.

That means the red zone touchdown percentage for that game as at zero because they never reached the red zone.

Ah, yes. Red zone TD efficiency. It’s something that has plagued the Raiders for some time. It had improved in their three-game stretch against the Broncos, Chiefs, and Texans. But even with those improvements, their season average sits at 52.2% and drops to 45.5% on the road.

Those percentages land them at 22nd in the league.

Two spots below the Raiders at 50% is the Jaguars. And their average oddly is even worse (40%) at home.

The thing is, the Jaguars have an excuse. They have no true X receiver and no defined number one receiver either. Hence why they just traded for Calvin Ridley despite Ridley being suspended all of this season.

The Raiders have two good X receivers, one of whom is a true number one receiver. With Davante Adams and Mack Hollins on the field together, there’s no reason the Raiders shouldn’t excel in the red zone. Especially when you add Josh Jacobs and Hunter Renfrow to the equation.

So, as has been the case much of the season, the Raiders would figure to have the advantage, if only slightly.

Then again, we said that prior to last week’s game and they lost by 24 points. The Jaguars haven’t had even a two-score defeat all season long.