Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Las Vegas Raiders Preview & Prediction | PFF

Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Las Vegas Raiders Preview & Prediction | PFF

Uh, Jags and the Raiders. Uh, you want to start talking about the Raiders? You want to talk about the Jags here for this one? I’ll go with the Raiders offense and Gino Smith. I think this game is very very simp. It’s it true. It’s very simp. We only saw 30 plays of them against Kansas City and we’ll see if it’s even less than that this week. But no, I I I think it’s very simple. Gino Smith is tied for the league lead with 10 interceptions and he’s been putting the ball in danger a lot. The Jacksonville Jaguars through their first five games led the league in coverage grade and led the league with 10 interceptions. Their last two games they have not gotten an interception. That was against Seattle and LA, the Rams. And they have the lowest coverage grade in the league, actually a 35.9 in both of those two games. So, which Jaguars coverage unit do we get? Is it the one that was Ball Hawk in their first five games and looked really good? And which Gino Smith do we get? One that can protect the football or one that’s just going to keep taking chances downfield and missing throws. If it’s the latter and you get the Gino Smith that’s throwing picks and the Jags are getting takeaways, this could be a blowout. Gino has to be able to keep them in this game because, you know, the Jags went into their bye-week going, “Hey, we got to get to the football again. This is what was winning us games earlier on is getting interceptions, especially defending the middle of the field.” I think there’s just a heavy part of this game that comes down to turnovers, especially on the Raiders side of it. Speaking of coverage, that’s a good segue into sort of what I I think is a a point of emphasis for the Jag side of things. Dalton, which coverage scheme do you think a Pete Carol led Las Vegas Raiders team runs the most? Oh, I know it’s that old Seattle cover three probably more than anybody. It’s cover three indeed. They’re top three in the NFL despite having a by-week uh at uh at cover three rate in in in how many snaps that they have that they have run cover three this year. When you look at Trevor Lawrence versus cover three specifically 58.1 passing grade, he’s got three turnover worthy plays and one big time throw. Although I will say two of the turnover worthy plays were sort of like eh I I can I those are yes they were bad decisions and I think that they they were categorized as turnover worthy plays but there was really only the one where I go all right you really threw it into an area of cover three that you should not have on this play. So, he’s been okay versus cover three. But specifically, this is what I wanted to point out with Trevor Lawrence. Seven sacks when he’s looking at a cover three shell ver and that that was tied for the most of any other coverage scheme that he is looking at specifically with the Rams. That’s the team that also runs cover three at a very high level, very similar to that of the Raiders. When they played the Rams, he saw a ton of cover three. That’s where those sacks came, those seven sacks came. And he had a much higher time to throw. So when he was seeing cover three against the Rams, who run it at a similar rate to what he will see against the Raiders, it was where he had the most hesitancy. He took the most sacks, and he had a higher time to throw. So does that continue this game? Is the Rams defense just a lot more formidable than the Raiders, or is this a coverage that he really just struggles to diagnose and process at a faster level? That’s what I’m really looking at in this game. And and I think this will be a little bit more of a okay, this is a tangible thing we could take away from Trevor Lawrence as a quarterback. Uh maybe more so than just like the game overall. But it’s hard for me to have a lot of faith in the Raiders right now. I think this game will be decently close. I’m gonna go Jags 23, Raiders 17 is the final score that I’m going with here. I I’ve got it even closer. Jaguars 20 to 17. And I think to your point about Trevor Lawrence against say cover three, right? And one thing that gets talked about all the time with these zone coverages are how many guys are back deep. Well, remember that it’s also four guys that are playing underneath as well. And this Jaguars passing game has been really conservative. I think the word hesitant you use for Lawrence is big time there because Trevor Lawrence to me has struggled with just driving the football downfield with conviction. And so often against a coverage like that, you have to drive it down the seams, right? Or sometimes you end up with a one-on-one on the outside that you just have to take that chance on. I think the vertical passing for Trevor Lawrence has been a struggle and I think there’s times he’s been indecisive with it. You have to be willing to layer footballs over the second level of that defense in order to make that happen. So, I I think he knows honestly I think he knows what the coverages are, but it just feels like he’s not throwing the ball past that 12 to 15 yard mark with any sort of conviction. You have to attack a defense like this and especially with the Raiders lack of talent in the secondary. He should be able to do that with Brian Thomas. I think Liam Cohen needs to use Travis Hunter downfield more often. He’s a downfield threat with the ball skills who can go up and get it. We saw it in the Kansas City game. We really We saw it in the fourth quarter against the Rams when the game was over. Let’s see it more often earlier in these games. Let’s get Travis Hunter working downfield. Let’s get Brian Thomas Jr. some confident throws going downfield, right? I think that’s the element that’s missing. The Jags have been efficient underneath. The run game has mostly been pretty good. They need to attack over the top to make the defenses respect everything that’s going on underneath. I would agree. I would definitely agree with that. Um Oh, Drake said something in the chat with Oh, Drake was saying, “So, you’re saying that it’s a big Max Crosby game, Trevor?” Could very well be, right? I mean, like you said, if Lawrence doesn’t have that confidence and conviction to get rid of the ball decently quickly when he is looking downfield against cover three, you hold on to that ball a little bit too long and Max Crosby will make you pay. So, it could be a big Max Crosby day. We will see.

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The Jacksonville Jaguars and The Las Vegas Raiders.

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