Defensive line is in middle of reboot
After their defense finished 2017 ranked 24th in the NFL in sacks and 26th against the pass, the Raiders, under new head coach Jon Gruden and defensive coordinator Paul Guenther, set out this offseason to improve their pass rush.
They drafted two defensive tackles in P.J. Hall and Maurice Hurst and defensive end Arden Key. They re-signed nose tackle Justin Ellis and brought in experienced linemen Frostee Rucker and Tank Carradine.
All were viewed as players who could, ideally, complement and help take some attention away from the edge-rushing tandem of Khalil Mack and Bruce Irvin. Until Saturday, that is, when the Raiders traded Mack to the Bears.
Now, the group will be tasked with generating a pass rush without Mack, the 2016 Defensive Player of the Year who had 36½ sacks over the past three seasons. It figures to be a particular challenge for Guenther, who said after being hired in January that he planned to have Mack as “the centerpiece of the defense.”
Guenther rarely blitzed last season in Cincinnati, preferring to try to create pressure with four rushers. Asked about that tendency in January, Guenther said: “What I’d like to do is get Khalil Mack one-on-one. That’s more of a blitz to me than anything.”
With that no longer an option, Gruden was asked Monday how the Raiders will try to pressure opposing quarterbacks.
“Well, we’ll see,” Gruden said. “There’s other ways to get to the passer besides just a four-man rush. Somebody has to step up. It’s Arden Key’s time. Bruce Irvin has to step up. Perhaps that means more blitzing. We’ll have to see.”
Among the players on Oakland’s roster, Irvin had the most sacks last season with eight, which equaled his career high. The combined sack total of all other current Raiders who played in the NFL last season — seven.
That, of course, excludes their draft picks. And the Raiders are going to count on Hurst, Hall and Key to make an impact quickly.
“They don’t want us to be rookies,” Hurst said in training camp. “They want us to come out and play right away and play effectively, come out and just dominate and do what they expected us to do. Just be a vital part of this defense.”
Hurst, once seen as a first-round talent out of Michigan, fell to the Raiders in the fifth round in April’s draft because of concerns over a heart condition. He said last month that the feeling of that draft-day tumble is “something that you always have to carry with you.”
In that way, he has something in common with Key, who declared himself a “top-five” talent but fell to the Raiders in the third round following a tumultuous final college season. Hall carries his own chip, having come from a Division II program in Sam Houston State.
“We all look at it like this is where we are going to be and stay for our whole career,” Key said last month. “We are trying to (create) a dynasty here.”
In the short term, their roles likely grew with the departure of Mack, which players addressed for the first time Monday.
“We’ve got to play together,” Ellis said. “It takes a village to rush the passer. So it’s not just him. Even if he was here, we’ve still got different things we still have to fix from last year.”
Several defensive linemen pointed out that because Mack was away all offseason in a contract holdout, the current group hadn’t taken the field with him and got more reps with each other as a result. That experience could be valuable now, with Mack’s return no longer a possibility.
“We don’t focus on what’s not going to be there,” defensive end Fadol Brown said. “Whether you’re considered a third-team guy, second-team guy, there’s no drop-off. The standard is the standard. And we hold ourselves to our own standards.”