Derek Carr was 15-24 for 112 yards, took two sacks holding the ball too long before Myles was put on the shelf, changing the dynamic of the pass rush completely. Ronnie Harrison also dropped an easy interception that could have gone all the way back... possibly the most forgotten drop in a day of constant Browns drops.
Don't forget the perfectly thrown pass to Henry Ruggs in the endzone who didn't get both feet in. Also, he threw a TD to Hunter Renfrow that you left out. Not to mention Carr had 6 rushes for 41 yards. He wasn't exactly held in check by Woods's play-calling here.
Woods leans toward conservative. He doesn't mind surrendering short passes as long as the zone prevents long breakaway gains.
Right - and my point is that there is such a thing as being TOO conservative at times. We've played 8 games now and the
only game our defense had actually gotten consistent stops was the Colts game. Lamar, Burrow x2, Haskins, Dak, and Ben have shredded it pretty much at will. And I'd bet Carr would have also if not for the weather.
It has generated turnovers, I give him that credit, but we can't rely on turnovers for an entire season just to keep our heads above water. It's completely unsustainable. We don't have talent on our defense so I'd like to see Woods not completely rely on our safeties and linebackers every down and scheme up some more exotic and disguised coverages and blitzes
every now and then.
The key is the line controlling the line of scrimmage and linebackers reading the gaps well.
When the PFF grades come out, I expect the defensive tackles and linebackers to get completely roasted. They deserve the harsh criticism this week.
I'd welcome anyone to suggest otherwise when the game was so clearly dominated through long chunk runs straight through the middle of the defense.
The Raiders ran a ton of counters with pulling o-linemen against our defense. Why? Because our defensive line doesn't get a ton of push against run-blocking and our linebackers are typically 5 yards off the line of scrimmage looking to cover a zone. We were thoroughly dominated and pushed back at the line of scrimmage and couldn't make them pay for pulling so many lineman as a result.
How do you stop that when you know it's coming? Put 7 defenders on the line of scrimmage to threaten between each gap and have them shoot the gap that the o-linemen pulls from. When you crowd the line of scrimmage you do a better job of controlling the gaps - which is why we made such a strong goal-line stand when we knew they were trying to punch it in.
Woods didn't do this at all. It took until the 4th quarter that he actually started putting 8 in the box and never crowded the line of scrimmage. It's conservative but we clearly don't have the 2019 Niners defense here. The weather dictated that the Raiders would pound the ball - Woods has to be more willing to adjust to circumstances in the game.
The fact that Woods was so inflexible and just let them pound it down the gut the entire game is not good. I know we sorely need more talent on defense - I'll stand on top of the mountains and yell it. But Woods hasn't been doing good in light of that. When we start looking at statistics and how often we give up 3rd and longs, 4th downs, etc... we HAVE to have better play-calling.