It can be difficult for the untrained eye to know exactly when a pass is supposed to go to a certain player based on the play and coverage by the defense. For that we tend to rely on those who are either coaches or players.
Dan Orlovsky is a former NFL quarterback who now works as an analyst on NFL Network. He combed through the game tape of the last two games the Raiders played to try and figure out why Davante Adams is suddenly so underutilized. What he found were, as he describes it, five or six examples in which the ball should have gone to Adams and, for whatever reason, did not.
One Raiders fan tweeted out the video of Orlovsky’s video analysis.
Orlovsky’s assertion that Derek Carr is intentionally not throwing to Davante Adams seems kind of crazy, but he notes that he simply can’t come up with another reason why Adams wouldn’t be getting the ball in these situations. He said similar in an appearance on the Rich Eisen show.
Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels was asked about what Orlovsky said. He started out by saying he didn’t see the segment or know what Orlovsky was referring to.
However, McDaniels does note that the issue could be in relying too much on tape study and not enough on deciding where to go with the ball based on reading the defense at the line.
“We’ve seen a lot of different things in three weeks. Much of which may not have showed up in the scouting report based on what a team played someone else,” said McDaniels.
“The scouting report almost takes a right or a left turn at the beginning of every game because a team decides to do something dramatically different than maybe what they decided against two or three opponents prior to your game. And so, I think that getting used to that, being able to adjust to it, and still be productive. . . which is why what we always try to preach is, the most important thing we can do is read the defense because if you’re just going to assume that one guy’s going to be open or I have to throw it here, again, the defense always has a vote in that and they get to determine how they’re going to try to cover you.”
McDaniels used, as a prime example, that a team may double team a receiver, which would take that player away as the primary option. But that was clearly not the case in the examples Orlovsky showed, and he claims he has just as many similar examples he didn’t show.
And, yeah, we all understand that targets are going to vary even for great receivers like…
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