Answering Raiders Questions: Does Carr Need to Run, More

Each week we take the time to answer your questions about the Las Vegas Raiders.

HENDERSON, Nev.--The Las Vegas Raiders have one of the most passionate fan bases in all of the world, that is why each week we open our mail bag to answer some of your questions.

Hondo, why doesn't Derek Carr run the football?  It makes no sense.  Is he a coward because he broke an ankle?  Can you please find out?  Raider Nation is tired of it.  We saw what a running QB can do.  Carlos M.  

Carlos, ANYONE who thinks that Derek Carr is a coward, is ridiculous.  He has a boss.  But, I asked his boss, Josh McDaniels, if he would like Derek to run.  Here is the answer, and hopefully it ends the blame on Carr.

"I would like that not to happen a whole lot. I'm not a big fan of our quarterbacks doing that necessarily, but if it presented itself and the situation was right of course the guys are going to do that. And Derek's done that over his career. We didn’t have a whole lot of rushing yesterday between the two quarterbacks. I think if it's necessary and you need it, yes. Preferably, I'd like to keep that little cocoon in a nice spot and let him throw the ball from the pocket. Hopefully we can do that a little better."

Sorry Hondo, I am not buying the Josh McDaniels crap.  How could he not be more aggressive in the second half, when you clearly pointed out how aggressive he was at the end of the first half?  The guy, can't defend himself.  Love you, Uncle.  Matt M.

Matt, he was asked about his second-half play calling.  Here is what Josh said:

"Look, when you get a lead and you have a lead in the second half of an NFL game and you are playing offense, you have to maintain the ability to be aggressive even though the other team is maybe going to do some things to try and get the ball back or create some negative plays or turnovers to try to swing the game back in their favor. You can’t just sit there and say, ‘Let’s run, run, punt,’ and do it that way. Again, it doesn’t mean you can’t run the ball, but you certainly can’t sit there and just hope for the game to be over. You got to play offense, you got to be aggressive, and when you are doing that and the defense is being aggressive at the same time, it’s going to require a lot of people to execute their job well under pressure. And again, I think you grow to that and when you get to that point where you can do that on a continuous basis, you have the ability when you put yourself in that position to put the game away." 

Uncle Hondo, you were pretty high on the performance of Dylan Parham.  Any idea what (Dave) Siegler or Josh thought about how he did?  Kate L.

I asked Josh.  He said, "He did a good job with his communication, for the most part. I think that's always number one when you're playing center. I thought he did a good job of helping set the table for his teammates and tried to play physical and aggressive. [He] had a few things that we'll be able to coach technique-wise for him to do better, whether it's protection or in the running game. But I was not disappointed in Dylan Parham at all."

Hondo, I am not gonna lie.  Really disappointed in Chandler Jones.  The dude had all the stats before getting here and sucks now.  Looks like we have another Warren Sapp.  What do you think big fella?  L.L. Oakland, CA

Josh McDaniel was asked if he was disappointed with Chandler's production after two games.  He was not, saying, "No. We had to rush a different way yesterday (Sunday). That's clearly one thing we needed to do, and we tried to keep him (Kyler Murray) in front of us. He's a very difficult guy to play against, we talked about that last week. When you rush him, and you rush him over-aggressively, bad things can happen. We tried to limit his ability to run and make a bunch of loose plays as much as we could. I know when we got tired there at the very end of the fourth quarter, he extended a few plays. But we asked our guys to do a certain thing yesterday, I thought they tried to do it the right way and had some production even so. But no, I'm not worried about that. Chandler -- this isn’t the first time he's gone two games without a sack."

Even DC Patrick Grham weighed in on how they used Jones versus the Cardinals.

"Just talking about the plan – when you're dealing with someone like [Kyler] Murray, you can't rush him the same way you're going to rush everybody else. I don't think that's a recipe for success in my opinion. So, what we do is we try to fit the game plan for the opponent, and I thought Chan [Chandler] has some great rushes during the game in terms of keeping him in the pocket. The unselfishness, like you said, in terms of forcing it to other guys, and we made some plays in there in the pocket and unfortunately, they made a few more plays than we made and that's why they won the game. But you have to change the plan based on the quarterback. Each quarterback is different just like this week with Tennessee, it's going to be different. You got another more mobile quarterback back there and we're going to have to figure out the best plan to take care of him as well.”

Hondo, if we can't run, we can't win.  I love all the weapons throwing, but our run game has stunk in two games.  That wasn't the New England Patriots' way.  Is Josh McDaniels trying to sabotage us?  Arthur W.

I agree Arthur that the run game has been bad.  But, I also think there are legitimate reasons.  The first is that in-game one they fell behind early, and playing catchup means throwing.  

Against the Cardinals, there were plenty of chances ruined by turnovers and penalties making the down and distance, not a running scenario.  But, in fairness to your question, I asked OC Mick Lombardi about it.

“I think penalties and turnovers are things we preach from a fundamental standpoint from day one of the phase two of the offseason. Those are big things that we try and preach, and you can't really get a drive going if you fall behind. Obviously, in the first drive of the game, we overcame some of those things. But as the game goes on, you can't do that. And those are fundamental things that we can hopefully correct from a week-to-week basis and continue to talk about. As an offense, you want to try and be as balanced as possible; whether it's run game, pass game – you want to try and establish the run, establish an efficiently timed passing game, and stay ahead of down distance. We're going to have a difficult time of being in third and 10-plus a number of times. So, if we're able to do that and stay ahead of the down and distance – whether that's making sure we get the ball out on time or getting a hat on the hat in the running game, that's what we're going to try and do so we're not in third and long for most of the game.”

If you have a question that you would like answered, simply send me an email at:  SpartanNationMail@yahoo.com and put in the subject line Raiders Q/A.

The Raiders (0-2) will kickoff next Sunday at 10 a.m. PDT in Nashville, Tenn., against the Tennessee Titans. You can watch the game on FOX.

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