New York Giants Week 9: Examining the Las Vegas Raiders Offense

The Raiders fired their offensive coordinator, Mick Lombardi, and have a change at quarterback. How might that affect what they do this weekend against the Giants?

The New York Giants and Las Vegas Raiders are facing off in a battle between two struggling franchises. The Raiders this week alone have fired general manager Dave Ziegler, head coach Josh McDaniels, and offensive coordinator Mick Lombardi and have announced that rookie Aidan O’Connell will get the start over Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback.

Let's go through what we know about their offense anyway since the Raiders, coming off a Monday Night loss to the Lions, won't have much time to make wholesale changes on the macro level.

Personnel

Raiders rookie quarterback Aidan O’Connell will start for the second time in his young career this week, his first start coming in week four when Garopollo was injured. This start is different, however, as it’s more of a “handing over the reins” start than just injury spot-start duty.

Daboll was asked what he knew about O'Connell, and predictably, he was complimentary of the youngster.

"I thought he played well in the preseason. I think he throws on time; he’s got a good pocket presence. He’s accurate; he’s thrown the three-step game, and they moved him slightly in the preseason. He throws good overs; he can throw the deep ball."

In his previous games, since he also played against the Bears, O’Connell operated the offense as best as he could but was given no help by McDaniels. When rookie quarterback is forced into a spot start, they’re generally given a simple game plan that features screens and play-action passes to help them out, but that’s just not the grace O’Connell was given. More on that later.

This offense was supposed to be built around Josh Jacobs and the power run game. A big issue with that, like most rushing offenses, is that if you have an offensive line as bad as this Raiders line, you will struggle.

On the year, Jacobs is averaging 3.1 yards per carry, with 2.06 of those coming after contact. Jacobs has always been an after-contact producer, last season averaging 3.4 yards per carry after contact and 4.9 yards per carry total. The primary reason for the disparity is that this season, Jacobs is being met at the line of scrimmage on most of his carries.

To say the passing attack has been lackluster would be an understatement. Davante Adams is still elite and about as productive as he can be, but there was a clear disconnect between him and Garoppolo.

Adams has been openly unhappy with his lack of touches this season. In O’Connell’s lone start, Adams was targeted 13 times, so those touches, or at least targets, should be coming for Adams.

Jakobi Meyers found a bit of a rhythm with Garoppolo but was also mostly unproductive. Meyers and Adams have combined for 943 yards, and all eight of the Raiders receiving touchdowns on 85 catches this season.

The tight ends are relatively unproductive as Austin Hooper and rookie Michael Mayer have spent plenty of time on the field together for 12 and 22 personnel looks. Hooper has been used mostly as a route runner, with Mayer doing the dirty work as a blocker. The Raiders also use fullback Jakob Johnson as a lead blocker often.

Raiders Fire Head Coach, GM Ahead of Giants Game

Scheme

Who knows what to expect this week? With the firing of McDaniels, who called the plays, and Lombardi, who was expected to call the plays when McDaniels initially got fired, there’s no tape to work off of. New offensive coordinator Bo Hardegree has been promoted from quarterbacks coach, but he’s never been an offensive play-caller in his career, so identifying tendencies isn’t possible.

Under McDaniels, Garoppolo was allowed to work with play-action a bit. Not very often, but almost a quarter of his pass attempts came from play-action. When O’Connell played, the team rarely ran play-action--they did so on just 6.8% of dropbacks. Given Hardegree’s experience specifically as a quarterbacks coach and someone who coached under Adam Gase, the play-action numbers should see a large uptick.

The biggest issue with trying to gameplan for this game is that there are no tendencies to work off of. The plays will be relatively the same--maybe Hardegree will go deeper into the playbook--but there’s no telling how often Hardegree will want to pass or run. When a quarterback coach takes over play-calling duties, we can generally expect that whatever we see the Raiders run this week will be what O’Connell has said he’s most comfortable with.

One expectation should be to see Jacobs very involved in the passing game. O’Connell targeted him ten times in week four, but even on top of that, rookie quarterbacks tend to look to running backs and tight ends for help. Given how aggressive the Giants defense can be at times, Jacobs could also be the check-down man there.

Play-action passing, wide receiver screens to get the ball out wide, and keeping a sixth-blocker in to help keep O’Connell clean are all things to expect Hardegree to do to help his quarterback succeed.

What This Means for the Giants

Two routes: play coverage and let the rookie make mistakes, or blitz and try to force errors

I think when you look at this matchup and all of the factors--new play-caller, inexperienced head coach (former Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce), a rookie quarterback, and an average pass-blocking offensive line--it makes for this Giants defense to have two possible approaches.

First, Wink Martindale could dial up pressure in the hopes of forcing a rookie quarterback to speed up his processing time and make mistakes. This approach would include running stunts, sim pressures, and disguising coverage more often than usual.

The alternative game plan would be to rush four linemen and drop seven players into coverage. The idea here is that O’Connell would have time to make a decision and try to force a throw with so many defenders in coverage, or you trust your front four to generate pressure without blitzing, either sacking O’Connell or forcing him to throw earlier than he wants. Ideally, disguising coverage on the back end would be a part of this plan as well.

Garoppolo this season was 46.9% of his pressures come from the interior, meaning Dexter Lawrence could once again be in a prime position for a dominant game inside.

If I were Martindale, I would go with the latter approach. Trust your defensive line that’s been on fire lately to do its job while protecting yourself from momentum-changing big plays in the back seven.

Final Thoughts

Once again, this game has all of the makings to be a low-scoring matchup, but the Giants should win this one. Neither offense is good--the Giants are ranked 32nd in the league and the Raiders 31st--but the Giants' defense, having been playing well over the past month, should help them stifle this Raiders offense.

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