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When you sit down to watch tonight’s Raiders-Chargers matchup in San Diego, keep an eye on WR Jacoby Ford and the speed Oakland has outside of the numbers.
Hue Jackson can still lean on Michael Bush in the game plan with the off-tackle power running game. That's the Raiders' offense the way I see it. However, there will be opportunities for QB Carson Palmer to test the top of a Chargers’ secondary that was exposed in the Week 9 loss to the Packers.
Let’s go back to last Sunday and look at a basic scheme from the Raiders’ playbook in what I call the “High Red Zone” (15 to 25 yard line). Ball on the far hash, Oakland wants to work the top of the Broncos’ Cover 2.
Run the Option-9 (fade) combo out of Posse personnel (3 WR, 1 TE, 1 RB) and test the range, depth and alignment of the safeties and corner backs.
Here is the route—drawn in from the Raiders’ pre-snap alignment.
As I mentioned above, this isn’t a complex route concept. Run the option routes (or out routes) to force the CBs to shorten their drops and expose the safety in the deep hole along the sidelines.
Use speed to challenge the angle from the safety (working off the top of the numbers) and fit the ball up the sideline on the up field shoulder of the WR. And that is exactly what we saw from Palmer vs. the Broncos.
Let’s see if the Raiders come back to this concept tonight vs. the Chargers.
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