Raiders Video Rewind

Well that was depressing.

I go into every video rewind with a number of preconceived notions, based on watching the game live.  Most of the time, I'd say, the rewind bears those inital impressions out.  There's some calibration each way, but the general thrust is usually not that far off.

This week, my impression after the game was that two things had been most costly in this loss:  1) terrible offensive line play that had McNabb under pressure all day, and 2) an offensive game plan that didn't adjust at all after the initial plan didn't work. 

Upon further review, I still think there's a lot of truth to the second point.  We're only a few weeks removed from the Saints game, when Andy and Marty pulled out all the stops creating a game plan that utilized every facet of the team's offense, so as not to put the whole thing on Kevin Kolb's shoulders.  And yet against the Raiders, when nothing seemed to be working and the offense was stuck in neutral, they just kept having Donovan drop back over and over and over again, like something different would happen if they just called the same stuff enough times in a row.  That didn't make sense.

But then I started watching the game.  And while McNabb certainly was under a fair amount of pressure -- especially in the first half -- and while the route packages seemed limited to "everyone go deep" -- especially in the first half -- I started noticing something.  Which was that Donovan McNabb wasn't playing very well. 

Which got me thinking.  See, one of the mistakes we make as outside analysts is when we assume the stupidity of the people we're analyzing.  Andy Reid is not stupid.  Marty Mornhinweg is not stupid.  So if doing something, anything(!) different was so obviously the answer, why didn't they think of it?  If the offense wasn't working, why not change it?

Well.  What if the offense was working?  What if guys were getting open and the quarterback had enough time to find them, but the plays just weren't being executed?  Would it then be so obvious that you should change everything up?  (Some will shout "YES" here, that's cool.)  Or do you bank on your streaky quarterback eventually coming out of his funk against a crummy defense if you let him "keep firing"?

All of these troubling thoughts formed as I watched the first half.  So, for the second half, I charted the offensive plays, to see what McNabb was up against and who really seemed to be at fault.  Here's what I found:

Seven plays in this series.  The Raiders blitzed on two of the five pass attempts.  On no plays did there appear to be pressure on McNabb that would affect the play.  The drive ended because of a drop (on what would have been only a short gain), a busted screen, and an overthrow by McNabb to an open Maclin.

And yes, I still think the fifth play should have been a run.  Go until they stop you.  But the play was one of those WCO "runs" that should have been completed.

On the first down play, we ran a short crossing route to Jackson that we should be running all the time.  No one can stop these plays, not with Jackson and Maclin out there together.

The second down play was a busted protection.  That basically killed the drive, although with that said, on third down there was an open receiver past Celek -- in the same general part of the field -- who McNabb may have been able to hit for a first down.  You be the judge:

There's a safety over the top, but that throw is there.

Very similar to the first series.  A drop by Celek on what would have been a first down and then a very, very poor throw by McNabb, missing an open Jeremy Maclin.  Note, again, the absence of any pressure on McNabb this series.

Same stuff, different order.  A drop / good coverage, a run play that went nowhere and another bad McNabb throw (the ball to Maclin that Jeremy had to become a DB on).  McNabb had pressure on that one, but he also had enough time to make a poor throw; he could have made a good one.

Weaver should have caught the ball, but it wasn't a great throw.  The screen didn't really fool anyone.

The big play was the last one.  A couple folks have noted that this sack wasn't really Justice's fault, because there was an overload on his side and he couldn't block two people at once.  This is true, but when you have seven blocking six and you still get an overload, it means your protection was screwed up.  Sometimes that happens because the defense tricks you.  Other times, well, watch:

There were five defenders bunched up to the right of the center, with only one to his left and one head-up on him.  Why on earth did we not slide the protection to the right?  I realize it's a play-action pass, but don't you have to see that alignment and think, "You know, I should really change this up."  You end up with four guys blocking two on the left and three blocking four on the right.  Grrrrr.

The first throw to Celek was a hell of a throw.  The coaches had to have been thinking, "Ok, Mac's back, now we're gonna roll."  Not so much.  The next play was an overthrow nowhere near Jackson in the endzone.  Then on the second down play, there was this:

A good throw to Avant there is a touchdown.  Now, it may be a bit harsh to say there was no pressure on that play.  McNabb did get some pressure eventually and had to flush.  But if he'd made the throw to Avant when it was there, I think he gets rid of the ball in plenty of time.

The sad thing is there's no coaches' cam here.  We can't say for sure.  But I watched these replays a whole bunch of times, and I think that play was there.  (It's fine if you're unconvinced at this point, it gets worse).

There's not much to blame on the third-and-10 play.  That's just a bad D&D to be in. 

Last series:

The Y* on the fourth play is the one where Seymour ran Dunlap over, but they ended up tangled together on the ground and McNabb had no trouble avoiding the mess.  As he heaves this ball nowhere somewhere near DeSean Jackson, keep an eye on the solitary figure standing forlornly in the middle of the field:

On second down, two angles showing the ball headed to Avant's feet while Maclin is open instead:

Third down there was pressure and he had to scramble.  Fourth down a ball that sort of looks like it's going to Avant, but is instead headed to a well-covered Jackson.  This is the one that bounced.  Avant look likes the better choice:

So ... this didn't look good.  Again, without the coaches' tape, we really can't see anything for sure.  But there were an awful lot of plays in this game where it certainly looked like McNabb wasn't seeing open receivers or wasn't making good throws when he did.

What all of this brings to mind is the memorable quote last year from Ron Jaworski when he said the tape showed McNabb was seeing a "muddy field."  His reads were off, he wasn't making the plays he should have, and that's why Reid finally gave Kolb a shot. 

In this game, there were some ugly protection breakdowns in the second half, but by my count McNabb had enough time on 19 of 25 plays.  You can't dump that whole mess on the line.

The good news here is that McNabb always pulls out of these funks in the end.  We know that the streaky bad will generally be followed by the streaky good if the season isn't interrupted by injury.

The bad news is that we don't call it the "Patented One-Game Stretch of Puzzlingly Bad Play."

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Now that I've spiked my chances of ever getting on the McNabb family Christmas card list, nothing else earth-shattering from here on out, just observations.

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As I mentioned last week, I can't always figure out what's going wrong in the run game.  Sometimes you can see missed assignments or timing issues.  Other times things just don't work. 

This play never works for us:

(Apologies for the abruptness, that's the way they cut to it.)

I mentioned the outside zone / stretch / whatever-you-want-to-call-it play during the preseason when I saw it against the Patriots.  We keep trying to run it, and while my memory could be faulty, I don't think I've seen it work yet.  Just don't know if the speed on the line is there.

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It's becoming a little easier to make judgments about Macho Harris, now that they seem to be asking him to do more than just stay deep and keep everything in front of him.  Here's one play where he again looks really good and aggressive in run support.  I love Trent Cole's reaction:

Then there's this one.  Do I know for certain what his role was on this play?  No, but as a general rule, when the DE goes inside on the snap, the dude lined up next to him is responsible for outside contain.  Macho gets locked up big time and allows the big run:

Gaither didn't look awesome on that play either.

Macho also had another play earlier where he came flying up to the line to fake the blitz, but unfortunately he overcommitted and wasn't able to run with the tight end.

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I've decided I don't do enough Trent Cole videos.  So take a look at that last Macho Harris video again, note the pre-play motion, and see what Cole does.  Now fast forward to a later point in the game and watch the Raiders try to run the same play at his side again:

Again, later in the game, slightly different formation, same play:

Yeah, slight bummer he missed the tackle.  But imagine trying to block that guy all day.  Not only does he never give up, but his instincts (or film study) are off the charts.

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Here's an awesome video:

Why so awesome, you ask?  Because someone finally covered a %$#@! tight end. 

The three-safety dime made it's 2009 debut this week (I believe).  I loved that look last year.  It got a lot of great speed on the field and it's something I assumed we'd run a lot of against New Orleans.  Hope we see more of it, now that Sean Jones may be getting more comfortable with the defense.

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It's pointless to complain too much about the officiating, especially at this point, but I don't know how you blow this call:

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For me, this is more, "Wow, Antonio Dixon is actually a player," and less, "Boy, Trevor Laws looks small out there," but YMMV:

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Lots of people are blaming Nick Cole for a second-quarter sack in which he "kicked out too wide."  Maybe, but this is one of the screwiest plays I've ever seen:

You could say King Dunlap only moves because Cole does, but that doesn't explain why Justice jumps at the same time on the other side of the formation. Usually, when the center forgets the snap count, you see 10 guys moving and one guy standing still.  This is half and half.  That's just goofy.

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Other thoughts:

• Guess McCoy isn't quite as good at pass protection as we could have hoped.  His experience running with poor blocking against stacked fronts is sure coming in handy, though.
• Brian Westbrook looked really good.  Maybe the lone bright spot.
• Bunkley and Patterson both had good days.  Both continue to get more pressure than we've seen in the past.  Both, however, are still playing against crummy teams every week, so we'll know more later.
• On the play where McNabb got his facemask pulled in the pocket (automatic 15-yard penalty) the ref asks the umpire for help and you can clearly see the umpire mime that it was his jersey collar, not the face mask.  Great call, dude. 
• You. Cannot. Run. Trick. Plays. To. Vick.  Use him as a decoy to run trick plays to OTHER PEOPLE.
• Both Gaither and Jordan struggled getting off OGs in this one.

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Lastly, I actually thought the pigeon covering the kickoff was pretty cool.