Raiders Defense

[jimkelly02]

7 minutes ago, Totty said:

I've said this in a few different places tonight... Our roster is the most well rounded is been in a very long time.  I'll never ever say I wanted Ruggs over Lamb.  Or that Arnette wasn't a reach.  But at both selections they pretty much had choice.  And they choose their guys.  

At WR we have our redone threat in TW.  Waller is up and coming.  Renfrow is clutch.  Especially on 3rd down.  Not we can take the lid off of it.  

 

Mullen is going to be fine.  Arnette is going to be our #2 corner.  Like it or not.  After Henderson and Terrell it was a drop.  You can only trade back if you can find a partner.  CB is a schematically important position.  What style of CB do you covet?  Arnette isn't going against the other teams #1.  That's Mullen.  He'll progress and may surprise.  

 

Biggest point is while we may not have gotten the guys we as individuals wanted, there wasn't anything out of position.  We didn't take an OT.  Or a kicker.  We got two guys who we should be able to plug in and get production out of.  Similar to last year.  My .02

As mad as I was.... maybe I was wrong.... I can admit it....

Noah Igb..africa from Auburn and Jeff Gladney closed out round 1.  

Now I wasn’t as sold on Johnson being a 1st rounder or option at 19.  I thought he was like a 35-45 guy.  
only other top CB is Diggs and I think he could fall to late 2nd.... he’s dead even with Arnette imo.

so maybe Arnette wouldn’t have been available if we traded down into round 2? He could have gone at the top of round 2 just in front of us depending where we traded.

if Arnette ran a 4.45 I think he prolly would have been 25-35 on big boards so 19 isn’t that much of a reach.

[NYRaider]

25 minutes ago, MrOaktown_56 said:

I don't see any clear weaknesses on this defense. A well rounded, cohesive unit is better than a unit with some elite players and key flaws. 

The secondary is still a huge question mark. 3 of our projected starters have played a combined total of 702 NFL snaps. 

[Totty]

11 minutes ago, jimkelly02 said:

As mad as I was.... maybe I was wrong.... I can admit it....

Noah Igb..africa from Auburn and Jeff Gladney closed out round 1.  

Now I wasn’t as sold on Johnson being a 1st rounder or option at 19.  I thought he was like a 35-45 guy.  
only other top CB is Diggs and I think he could fall to late 2nd.... he’s dead even with Arnette imo.

so maybe Arnette wouldn’t have been available if we traded down into round 2? He could have gone at the top of round 2 just in front of us depending where we traded.

if Arnette ran a 4.45 I think he prolly would have been 25-35 on big boards so 19 isn’t that much of a reach.

You need to find a team to trade with.  Maybe no one was interested?  What then?  Go the Reggie route and get crap back for the trade down so we can blast then for that?  Not specifically you, but all these mock draft all stars sit there for hours carefully planning out how they'd do things when in real life, you got ten minutes to figure it out.  

Edited April 24, 2020 by Totty

[MrOaktown_56]

1 hour ago, NYRaider said:

The secondary is still a huge question mark. 3 of our projected starters have played a combined total of 702 NFL snaps. 

Absolutely. But I feel good about the projections for those players, compared to guys we've put there in the past.

That's another thing with big school guys. Level of competition and confidence. They played against the best in college and nothing is too big for them.

[NYRaider]

1 minute ago, MrOaktown_56 said:

Absolutely. But I feel good about the projections for those players, compared to guys we've put there in the past.

Agreed. This is one of the first years in forever that we've had speed, youth, and athleticism at all 3 levels of the defense. With Arnette slotted into the other CB spot the average age of our starters on defense is a shade under 25. 

[MrOaktown_56]

Just now, NYRaider said:

Agreed. This is one of the first years in forever that we've had speed, youth, and athleticism at all 3 levels of the defense. With Arnette slotted into the other CB spot the average age of our starters on defense is a shade under 25. 

I see the vision in this defense. Mullen also can match up with speed guys. He did a great job on Hill. Arnette can stay with physical outside receivers and be a plug and play corner in a press man scheme.

 

[NYRaider]

32 minutes ago, MrOaktown_56 said:

I see the vision in this defense. Mullen also can match up with speed guys. He did a great job on Hill. Arnette can stay with physical outside receivers and be a plug and play corner in a press man scheme.

Actually having two athletic safeties on the back end should help our secondary out a lot as well. 

[jimkelly02]

6 hours ago, Totty said:

You need to find a team to trade with.  Maybe no one was interested?  What then? 

Just FYI Mayock admitted in his PC he has several teams call him to trade up for 12 and 19.

i can live with taking Ruggs at 12... maybe there’s something to Lamb not being as good as we thought or character issues cuz he fell to 17 and SF probably would have really considered Ruggs over Kinlaw.  I’m mad I didn’t get my guy but it’s ok, it was a sound pick.

but to have multiple offers for a trade down offered to you and to see teams trade up for 23, 25, 26 And not take one of those offers is just POOR management.  
 

even if we assume a first case scenario for Damon Arnette’s ranking in on team’s boards (Peter King said he believes he’s a second rounder of 28 of 32 boards) then it’s likely would have gone before Noah Igbinoghene (Mia-30) and Jeff Gladney (Minn-31).  There absolutely where trades were available. All the trades made did favor the team trading up slightly... around a 5th-6th round pick.  That means we at least could have gotten a 3rd round in the last 1/3 of the round.  That pick and 91 gets us into round 2 mid way.  So when you see a ton of guys who were once 1st round picks a month ago going in the late 40s and early 50s that you really wanted, thank Mayock for that.

its one Thing to not be hysterical about the pick and another thing to defend it.... if your defending Arnette at 19 you either don’t know what your talking about, a Ohio State fan, or your just a blind sheep following Mayock.

in think we need to really evaluate Mayock.  He overpaid Trent Brown pretty heavily.  I’ve heard both sides tell the story and we called Trent at midnight for day 1 and offered that deal... it was so good for him he just said yes and didn’t even shop around.  Do you walk into a dealership and offer salesman over sticker to make sure you get that pickup truck? Absolutely not.he drastically overpaid Joyner, a player that doesn’t fit our scheme well and really didn’t have a big market for him.  Williams was a decent signing but even that we knew was gonna be a nice hit or miss but I think it was a nice calculated risk.  In the draft he reached really hard on Ferrell (after hearing his PC today I don’t believe there were no trade downs last year... I’m sure there was... he just didn’t take them... even Reggie traded down from 3 to 12 for dj Hayden he didn’t just take him at 12.  That’s what Mayock does.  The Jacobs pick he gets a little credit for but not much... ig was a 1st round RB at 24 and the only RB that was even near being worth a 1st and we desperately needed a RB.  Abrams we don’t know.... even that one was a little reach, but not bad.  Mullen was a good pick and he traded down 5 picks in 2 trades. That was very good.  He nailed a Crosby..... but that wasn’t a miracle pick. Crosby was one of a few DEs in consideration (I think it was Crosby or Anthony Nelson or Austin Bryant or Shareef Miller basically) And we needed another one, we were bad at DE and doubling dipping was a widely liked idea.  Renfrow is exactly who everyone knew he’d be, no suprise.

Mayock stuck out on several of his top FAs this year.  What did we really get?

Nassib @9m? Lol Old man Witten @4.5M?  The LBs were good signings.  But he couldn’t land Jones over the structure of the deal not the cost.  He could sign Chris Harris Or get Slay.  
 

I don’t think he’s a bad GM or doesn’t know takent... he’s very good at it... but it is honestly reasonable to question his ability to get the job done at a high level in tough crunch time situations, when a lot of people’s criticisms of the move where that they questioned him Taking a job he had no experience doing—- would the job be to big for him?

i think he’s struggling at some important points and thriving at others.  We should as a fan base be critical of his bad decisions.  But also credit the good 

Edited April 24, 2020 by jimkelly02

[MrOaktown_56]

5 hours ago, jimkelly02 said:

Just FYI Mayock admitted in his PC he has several teams call him to trade up for 12 and 19.

i can live with taking Ruggs at 12... maybe there’s something to Lamb not being as good as we thought or character issues cuz he fell to 17 and SF probably would have really considered Ruggs over Kinlaw.  I’m mad I didn’t get my guy but it’s ok, it was a sound pick.

but to have multiple offers for a trade down offered to you and to see teams trade up for 23, 25, 26 And not take one of those offers is just POOR management.  
 

even if we assume a first case scenario for Damon Arnette’s ranking in on team’s boards (Peter King said he believes he’s a second rounder of 28 of 32 boards) then it’s likely would have gone before Noah Igbinoghene (Mia-30) and Jeff Gladney (Minn-31).  There absolutely where trades were available. All the trades made did favor the team trading up slightly... around a 5th-6th round pick.  That means we at least could have gotten a 3rd round in the last 1/3 of the round.  That pick and 91 gets us into round 2 mid way.  So when you see a ton of guys who were once 1st round picks a month ago going in the late 40s and early 50s that you really wanted, thank Mayock for that.

its one Thing to not be hysterical about the pick and another thing to defend it.... if your defending Arnette at 19 you either don’t know what your talking about, a Ohio State fan, or your just a blind sheep following Mayock.

in think we need to really evaluate Mayock.  He overpaid Trent Brown pretty heavily.  I’ve heard both sides tell the story and we called Trent at midnight for day 1 and offered that deal... it was so good for him he just said yes and didn’t even shop around.  Do you walk into a dealership and offer salesman over sticker to make sure you get that pickup truck? Absolutely not.he drastically overpaid Joyner, a player that doesn’t fit our scheme well and really didn’t have a big market for him.  Williams was a decent signing but even that we knew was gonna be a nice hit or miss but I think it was a nice calculated risk.  In the draft he reached really hard on Ferrell (after hearing his PC today I don’t believe there were no trade downs last year... I’m sure there was... he just didn’t take them... even Reggie traded down from 3 to 12 for dj Hayden he didn’t just take him at 12.  That’s what Mayock does.  The Jacobs pick he gets a little credit for but not much... ig was a 1st round RB at 24 and the only RB that was even near being worth a 1st and we desperately needed a RB.  Abrams we don’t know.... even that one was a little reach, but not bad.  Mullen was a good pick and he traded down 5 picks in 2 trades. That was very good.  He nailed a Crosby..... but that wasn’t a miracle pick. Crosby was one of a few DEs in consideration (I think it was Crosby or Anthony Nelson or Austin Bryant or Shareef Miller basically) And we needed another one, we were bad at DE and doubling dipping was a widely liked idea.  Renfrow is exactly who everyone knew he’d be, no suprise.

Mayock stuck out on several of his top FAs this year.  What did we really get?

Nassib @9m? Lol Old man Witten @4.5M?  The LBs were good signings.  But he couldn’t land Jones over the structure of the deal not the cost.  He could sign Chris Harris Or get Slay.  
 

I don’t think he’s a bad GM or doesn’t know takent... he’s very good at it... but it is honestly reasonable to question his ability to get the job done at a high level in tough crunch time situations, when a lot of people’s criticisms of the move where that they questioned him Taking a job he had no experience doing—- would the job be to big for him?

i think he’s struggling at some important points and thriving at others.  We should as a fan base be critical of his bad decisions.  But also credit the good 

Harris didn’t want to play outside. Slay is going to cost $$$$. I get why he did what he did.  But I see your concerns.

[Darbsk]

21 hours ago, jimkelly02 said:

Just FYI Mayock admitted in his PC he has several teams call him to trade up for 12 and 19.

i can live with taking Ruggs at 12... maybe there’s something to Lamb not being as good as we thought or character issues cuz he fell to 17 and SF probably would have really considered Ruggs over Kinlaw.  I’m mad I didn’t get my guy but it’s ok, it was a sound pick.

but to have multiple offers for a trade down offered to you and to see teams trade up for 23, 25, 26 And not take one of those offers is just POOR management.  
 

even if we assume a first case scenario for Damon Arnette’s ranking in on team’s boards (Peter King said he believes he’s a second rounder of 28 of 32 boards) then it’s likely would have gone before Noah Igbinoghene (Mia-30) and Jeff Gladney (Minn-31).  There absolutely where trades were available. All the trades made did favor the team trading up slightly... around a 5th-6th round pick.  That means we at least could have gotten a 3rd round in the last 1/3 of the round.  That pick and 91 gets us into round 2 mid way.  So when you see a ton of guys who were once 1st round picks a month ago going in the late 40s and early 50s that you really wanted, thank Mayock for that.

its one Thing to not be hysterical about the pick and another thing to defend it.... if your defending Arnette at 19 you either don’t know what your talking about, a Ohio State fan, or your just a blind sheep following Mayock.

in think we need to really evaluate Mayock.  He overpaid Trent Brown pretty heavily.  I’ve heard both sides tell the story and we called Trent at midnight for day 1 and offered that deal... it was so good for him he just said yes and didn’t even shop around.  Do you walk into a dealership and offer salesman over sticker to make sure you get that pickup truck? Absolutely not.he drastically overpaid Joyner, a player that doesn’t fit our scheme well and really didn’t have a big market for him.  Williams was a decent signing but even that we knew was gonna be a nice hit or miss but I think it was a nice calculated risk.  In the draft he reached really hard on Ferrell (after hearing his PC today I don’t believe there were no trade downs last year... I’m sure there was... he just didn’t take them... even Reggie traded down from 3 to 12 for dj Hayden he didn’t just take him at 12.  That’s what Mayock does.  The Jacobs pick he gets a little credit for but not much... ig was a 1st round RB at 24 and the only RB that was even near being worth a 1st and we desperately needed a RB.  Abrams we don’t know.... even that one was a little reach, but not bad.  Mullen was a good pick and he traded down 5 picks in 2 trades. That was very good.  He nailed a Crosby..... but that wasn’t a miracle pick. Crosby was one of a few DEs in consideration (I think it was Crosby or Anthony Nelson or Austin Bryant or Shareef Miller basically) And we needed another one, we were bad at DE and doubling dipping was a widely liked idea.  Renfrow is exactly who everyone knew he’d be, no suprise.

Mayock stuck out on several of his top FAs this year.  What did we really get?

Nassib @9m? Lol Old man Witten @4.5M?  The LBs were good signings.  But he couldn’t land Jones over the structure of the deal not the cost.  He could sign Chris Harris Or get Slay.  
 

I don’t think he’s a bad GM or doesn’t know takent... he’s very good at it... but it is honestly reasonable to question his ability to get the job done at a high level in tough crunch time situations, when a lot of people’s criticisms of the move where that they questioned him Taking a job he had no experience doing—- would the job be to big for him?

i think he’s struggling at some important points and thriving at others.  We should as a fan base be critical of his bad decisions.  But also credit the good 

Some very valid criticism here, Ferrell, Ruggs and Arnette over the next few years will be very important in how Mayock is viewed moving forward. All three could potentially be viewed as reaches though Ruggs less so and how they mature can gave a big impact for Mayock. I'm in the wait and see camp and very much still have big question marks over both Mayock and Gruden, Gruden from a roster building perspective especially. 

It looks very much from our draft first 2 days that we're relying very much on defense that a few guys like Collins, Hurst, Mullen, Abram and Johnson step up and that they will all improve and become integral players, I hope they are correct as we wont gave any big name rookie defensive help.

[NYRaider]

4 minutes ago, Darbsk said:

It looks very much from our draft first 2 days that we're relying very much on defense that a few guys like Collins, Hurst, Mullen, Abram and Johnson step up and that they will all improve and become integral players, I hope they are correct as we wont gave any big name rookie defensive help.

Realistically the only players on our defense who are sure things are Cory Littleton, Jonathan Hankins, Carl Nassib and Damarious Randall. All three of those guys have started a ton of football games and their play should be on par with what it has been in recent years. After that though the rest of our defensive unit is really unproven heading into the year. 

I'd say the questions I have for players across the defense would be

Crosby: Can he improve upon his rookie production and become more effective in the run game? 

Ferrell: Can he take the next step forward and prove to be worth the #4 pick?

Collins: Can he take the next step and become a full time starting DT instead of a pass rush specialist? 

Mullen/Arnette: Can these two young CB's hold down the fort for us on the outside?

Abram: How will his game translate as a box safety and how will he hold up in coverage? 

Joyner: Will he be able to return to form and play up to that contract we gave him last offseason?

Kwit: Was last season a fluke? And will he be able to be an effective 3-down LB over the course of a 16 game season?

[Dessie]

14 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

Realistically the only players on our defense who are sure things are Cory Littleton, Jonathan Hankins, Carl Nassib and Damarious Randall. All three of those guys have started a ton of football games and their play should be on par with what it has been in recent years. After that though the rest of our defensive unit is really unproven heading into the year. 

I'd say the questions I have for players across the defense would be

Crosby: Can he improve upon his rookie production and become more effective in the run game? 

Ferrell: Can he take the next step forward and prove to be worth the #4 pick?

Collins: Can he take the next step and become a full time starting DT instead of a pass rush specialist? 

Mullen/Arnette: Can these two young CB's hold down the fort for us on the outside?

Abram: How will his game translate as a box safety and how will he hold up in coverage? 

Joyner: Will he be able to return to form and play up to that contract we gave him last offseason?

Kwit: Was last season a fluke? And will he be able to be an effective 3-down LB over the course of a 16 game season?

Agree with this, looks like a boom or bust type defense. Hopefully the young guys like Arnette & Abram can come in and be good starters. Lot depends on Ferrell & Crosby.

[Rolni]

I think this roster is finally a solid one. We have NFL level guys on every level of our D, we have some depth too. PG has to show up and field an at least average D IMO. If he can't he needs to go... 

[Darbsk]

1 hour ago, NYRaider said:

Realistically the only players on our defense who are sure things are Cory Littleton, Jonathan Hankins, Carl Nassib and Damarious Randall. All three of those guys have started a ton of football games and their play should be on par with what it has been in recent years. After that though the rest of our defensive unit is really unproven heading into the year. 

I'd say the questions I have for players across the defense would be

Crosby: Can he improve upon his rookie production and become more effective in the run game? 

Ferrell: Can he take the next step forward and prove to be worth the #4 pick?

Collins: Can he take the next step and become a full time starting DT instead of a pass rush specialist? 

Mullen/Arnette: Can these two young CB's hold down the fort for us on the outside?

Abram: How will his game translate as a box safety and how will he hold up in coverage? 

Joyner: Will he be able to return to form and play up to that contract we gave him last offseason?

Kwit: Was last season a fluke? And will he be able to be an effective 3-down LB over the course of a 16 game season?

Good post, I'm not as high on Randall as most seem to be though I'll freely admit I haven't seen a whole lot off him. I guess I'm just in wait and see mode and nervous as he didnt seem very valued by the Browns and came in late and cheap in FA, if he plays well it'll be a great addition at that cost.

Lots of question marks and this is the time of year where as a fan base we justify most every decision and think every player will improve, have to prepare for a few disappointments .......wonder who they are going to be?

[reddevil]

24 minutes ago, Darbsk said:

Lots of question marks and this is the time of year where as a fan base we justify most every decision and think every player will improve, have to prepare for a few disappointments .......wonder who they are going to be?

While you are absolutely right about this as it’s something I am definitely guilty of, I am fairly confident that the defense will at least be solid. There will be disappointments, but it would take some fairly catastrophic regression from a lot of individuals for us to not be better than we were and have been for some time imo. 

Yes, there are obvious questions about whether Crosby and Mullen continue to progress and Ferrell and Abrams will play like first rounders. But I look at Nassib, Collins, Kwit and Littleton (hopefully Randall too) and see really solid, intelligent, hard working players that will make us better. I have very little doubt about that. And that’s where I feel confident we will have a decent D.