If someone just picked up the box score from the Las Vegas Raiders’ Week 13 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, they might think that Devin White had a great game, since he ranked second on the team with 11 total tackles. However, a deeper dive tells a different story.
According to Pro Football Focus, White’s four missed tackles were the most among linebackers for the week (pre-Monday Night Football), and he allowed three completions on four targets for 30 yards and a touchdown to earn PFF’s lowest grade at the position (28.0).
Clearly, there’s more to the story than what originally meets the eye, so let’s flip on the tape and dive into the seven-year veteran’s performance.
We’ll start with one of the best plays White made on Sunday, coming up with a big stop on fourth and one. However, this play is more about what the Chargers do wrong than what the linebacker does right.
This is after Justin Herbert broke his left hand, so Los Angeles has to be in the shotgun for a short-yardage situation. Meanwhile, Las Vegas loads up the box where the defense is guaranteed to have an unblocked defender since there are six blockers to pick up seven defenders. Ideally, the offense leaves Jamal Adams unblocked since Adams is the defender furthest from the running back, and they only need one yard to keep the drive alive.
However, the Chargers’ right guard gets too involved with the backside defensive tackle instead of picking up the crashing linebacker, allowing White to get penetration and make the play. So, while White does a good job of taking advantage of the mistake, this is an example of how even one of his quality tackles is slightly misleading.
Penalties were part of the reason why the veteran’s PFF grade was so low. Here, he has a great read on the split-zone run from the Chargers, meeting the running back at the line of scrimmage to make a tackle for no gain. However, the extra circulars after the whistle, climbing over the running back instead of just getting up and celebrating with his teammates, turn a positive play into a negative one.
Speaking of plays that dropped White’s PFF grade/overall performance, this rep certainly tanked his score by combining a missed tackle with his second penalty of the game.
To the linebacker’s credit, he does do a good job of adjusting his assignment by working underneath the tight end’s block—instead of staying on the outside of it—and shooting the gap to be in a position to make a tackle for loss after Tyree Wilson misses. However, White doesn’t break down after getting into the backfield, leading to him having a narrow base and the arm tackle when the running back bounces outside.
Still, Isaiah Pola-Mao makes a nice tackle to keep this to a three-yard gain. The problem is that on White’s miss/arm tackle attempt, he gets a piece of the running back’s face mask to turn what should be a short gain into a first down.
This is another example of where Sunday’s box score is misleading.
It’s second and nine as the Chargers run a power lead out of a jumbo formation. Adam Butler, the playside defensive end, does a good job of resetting the line of scrimmage against the tight end (No. 42), which forces the puller to help the tight end kick out Butler and should free up White to make the play for a short gain. But White overpursues too far outside, leaving his gap open for the running back.
While the linebacker makes the tackle here, he also creates a rushing lane in the middle of the field. So, what should be a stop near the line of scrimmage ends up being a chunk gain on the ground to set up third and two instead of third and long.
To make matters worse, here’s the next play in the game.
Los Angeles runs a pin and pull concept with a jet sweep action by the wide receiver, where the outside tight end (No. 44) pins Maxx Crosby inside on the down block, and the right tackle (No. 79) and inside tight end (No. 42) pull outside to create a rushing lane on the perimeter. White reads the play and gets to the correct spot, splitting the two pullers, but can’t hold his ground to set the edge and gets widened outside the numbers for a first down.
To be fair, this is a tough assignment, but it is a rep where you’d like to see the linebacker be more physical and make up for the mental mistake on the previous play.
We’ll wrap up with a couple of reps in coverage, and the play call on the first one does put the linebacker in a tough position.
The Raiders show pressure pre-snap by putting seven defenders near the line of scrimmage, but it looks like they check out of the blitz or whatever the original call was. Notice Elandon Roberts jumping with his hands in the air, and then Pola-Mao signalling back to him and the rest of the secondary. As a result, they drop back into a two-man rush and roll into a soft zone Cover 3 look post-snap.
The idea here is to get Herbert to predetermine his throw and have one of the nine coverage defenders make a play on the ball. Obviously, that doesn’t happen since the quarterback hits the short curl for a third-down conversion.
Meanwhile, this puts White in a tough position since he’s spot-dropping into the curl-to-flat zone and reading the outside receiver off the snap. However, if he keeps his hips square to the line of scrimmage when dropping into coverage and reads the vertical release of the outside receiver, he’d be in a better position to defend the curl route.
Instead, the linebacker has his hips pointed toward the sideline, gets too much width on the drop and doesn’t see the slot receiver until it’s too late, leading to another third-down conversion.
Finally, this next play is just inexcusable.
Las Vegas runs a zone match coverage near the goal line, where defenders drop into their zones and then play man coverage on the first threat/receiver that comes into their area. White does a good job of recognizing and picking up the drag route from Quinten Johnston to begin the rep. However, he comes too far downhill instead of staying in Johsnton’s hip pocket and then just stops after the catch instead of making a tackle attempt.
What’s even more frustrating is that this was on the Chargers’ first drive. So, it’s not even as if the game was out of hand or anything along those lines. He just stopped playing football in the middle of the play, allowing Los Angeles to go up 7-0.
This isn’t the first time White has put together an impressive box score, but the film didn’t match. So, even though he leads the team in tackles and is currently the only player with triple digits, don’t be surprised if the Raiders don’t re-sign him in the offseason.