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Raiders hiring Patrick Graham as DC

Jraider91

By Jraider91
in Las Vegas Raiders

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Mr Raider

Mr Raider

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I understand people's worries and skepticism with McDaniels getting the HC job. I am more warm to it than a lot of others, even though I also have reservations. 

That being said, this hire IMO is an absolute home run. If you read anything out there about Graham there are a LOT of reporters out there with quotes about how respected and how highly thought of/sought-after he is around the NFL. He seems to be loved by players. He seems to be very adaptable with his defense to fit his players strengths. And he's gotten good results the past couple of seasons in NY IMO. Last year they were the 9th best defense in terms of points, and 12th in yards, while giving up the 5th fewest passing TDs, 11th in YPA against the pass, and top 10 against the run in terms of yards, yards per attempt, and rushing TDs. Doing all of that while the offense was 31st in yards, 31st in points, 31st in first downs, 29th in passing yards, 31st in passing TDs, 26th in rushing attempts, 19th in rushing yards, 22nd in rushing TDs, and 26th in percentage of drives ending in a score. 

Simply put to have a defense that good statistically while having a downright putrid offense that can't do ANYTHING at a high level requires a coach that knows how to get everything out of the talent he has, knows how to scheme a defense, and gets players to play hard even when a lot of other teams players would quit when the other side of the ball provides virtually nothing.

Yeah 2021 saw their defense drop to 23rd in points and 21st in yards, though they were still top half of the league in passing yards and passing TDs. They also were 16th in 3rd down defense, and 9th in red zone defense. The offense though took an even bigger step back in 2021. There was literally no area where they were above abysmal in. That's a tough ask for any defense to be good statistically. Particularly when the Giants seem to share the Raiders view that LB is a mystical position on the defense, as well as having some highly paid veterans that simply are more name than substance at this point (Bradbury and Ryan were cooked last year), Ojulari is the only pass rusher they had that provided double digit hurries, besides Ojularis 8 sacks as a rookie and Leonard Williams 6.5 they had nobody that could provide any type of pass rush. That could sound like bad news, but I assure you it isn't scheme related. Guys like Quincy Roche, Lorenzo Carter, Austin Johnson, Dexter Lawrence, and Danny Shelton couldn't form a reasonable pass rush for Bill B himself. 

It's actually pretty impressive how barren that team is of any type of quality depth or high end talent. Ojulari was someone I loved, and Williams is a solid interior guy but way overpaid. That's most of their team. Either draft picks that have done very little or very highly paid guys that were bad investments from the start. 

I am looking forward to what he can do with Maxx, Yannick. This hire should ease some peoples worries that Yannick wouldn't fit or wouldn't have a place. Hes very similar to Ojulari as an edge presence and he helped Ojulari have a really good rookie season rushing the passer. I think he could have a good blueprint on how to try and use Abram but if he wanted to go get Peppers or draft one of the safeties in this class by all means. Moehrig will be the best FS he's had to work with. Hobbs and Mullen will fit in nicely in his system. Hopefully we can give him more than he has had to work with at LB, but knowing us, who knows. Either way, I think this was a fantastic hire by us. I thought Bradley did a good job, and I was excited when he was hired because Gunther was pitiful, but I believe the upside here is significantly higher. If we can draft well and give him some more talent he can engineer a top 10 defense that can be creative and catch teams by surprise where Bradley has been more of a top 15 type of defense that is more vanilla but not a ton of mistakes. I think in today's NFL you have to shoot for the high upside, willing to adapt and evolve his scheme to keep up with the high offensive output in the NFL. 

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RaidersAreOne

RaidersAreOne

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6 minutes ago, NCOUGHMAN said:

Interesting very interesting surprised he left nyg 

Lots of people speculating he's pissed he got passed over twice for their HC gig. It's rare seeing a DC go to another DC without elevation, but in this case maybe he just wanted a fresh start/stick it to NY.

Sounds like he has some HC potential so may be a stop gap more than long-term solution. I hope he brings in some solid assistants. 

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