Las Vegas Raiders coaching staff and tendencies

HC Jon Gruden

It all starts out with Jon Gruden, we know he's a WCO offense guy, Out of the same coaching tree as Andy Reid. Gruden prefers a man blocking scheme on the OL. He regularly used a fullback, likes his power O, lead G, and power sweeps. His offense is often based on zone passes, where the receivers sit down in the gaps on zone coverage. He runs a lot of double routes, where you run two receivers at a defender forcing him to choose one or the other. In the redzone Gruden likes seam routes, outs, and double moves, in the passing game. Considered one of the best QB coaches in the NFL.

OC Greg Olsen

A Gruden disciple, with some Knapp influences.

QB Brian Callahan

To me Callahan is kind of an odd hire, he helped Jim Bob Cooter work with Matt Stafford, who has had the best years of his career under them. Callahan is an Air Coryall offense guy, not a WCO, but a bright rising, young coach.

RB Jemal Singleton

An up and coming RBs coach, fairly new to the NFL just in his third season. Spent the last two years with the Colts, before that Arkansas and Air Force.

WR Edgar Bennett

He is a WCO guy, worked with Mike McCarthy up in GB. Former OC for the Packers.

TE Frank Smith

His coaching career has mostly been OL, back with the Saints from 2010-14. Then he was the OC\OL coach for Butler University, before becoming the Bears TE coach, and now Oaklands. It looks like they want to coach more blocking into their TEs.

OL Tom Cable

This hire is described by many as a headscratcher in Oakland. Gruden likes his power running, and man blocking. If you go back in Mershawn Lynch's career, he enjoyed his best seasons in Seattle running behind a ZBS line.

Asst OL Lemuel Jean-Pierre

He is a Tom Cable guy, an assistant under him in Seattle, and former Tom Cable C\G. Pretty new to Coaching.





DC Paul Guenther

A Zimmer guy, and former Bengals DC, runs a base 4-3, 4-2-5 nickel. Plays primarily press man coverage, mixes it up with some cover 2 and cover 4, with a stop the run first mentality. He runs variations of the double A-gap blitz, trys to fit his scheme to the strengths of his players. Very good at disguising his defense with a lot of presnap shifts, he does a lot of bluffing, posturing and disguising. He is a very good blitz designer, although he doesn't blitz a lot. Uses mostly a 4 man rush to get home, dropping 7 into coverage. Prefers stunts and twists to actual blitzing. Under Guenther, Cincinnati fielded very good defenses, hard to figure out, but very often they were bad about giving up big plays.

DL Mike Trgovac

Kind of an odd hire as Trgovac is a 3-4 guy, out of the Dom Capers school. Spent years in GB and Carolina, former Carolina DC. Worked with Gruden in Philly from 95-98.

Asst DL Marco Coleman

Rookie Coach, former player

LB David Lippincott

Zimmer\Guenther guy

DB Derrick Ansley

Rookie to the NFL, former Alabama DBs coach

Senior defensive asst Jim O'Neil

Former DC for Cleveland and San Fran, likes the origional Ryan 46 defense, adapted to the 3-4, that even Rex got away from in Buffalo. Young intelligent coach, up and coming.

Defensive Quality Control Travis Smith

Holdover from the last 7 years in Oakland, lets hope he can screw this shit up.

ST Coord Rich Bisaccia

A very solid special teams coach in his 16 years in the league, with Dallas, and SD. Usually improves the talent given to him.

Asst. ST Byron Strorer

Fairly new to the coaching ranks in his fifth season, second stint with Bisaccia





Gruden has put together an accomplished staff, littered with former HCs and OC's, who have all been proven to get results in the past. People talk about all the aging vets Oakland has signed, but he did well with older receivers in his last stint in Oakland with Tim Brown, Andre Rison, and Jerry Rice. Guys who knew how to find the soft spot in the zone and sit down for the first down.





Bringing in DJ on the Defense makes sense as to having a coach on the field, to put the young guys in the best position to succeed. DJ may have lost a step, but he may be the perfect guy calling assignments, and showing a pretty young defense the ropes. He's been there and done that.





I expect this Oakland squad to be massively improved with this coaching staff, and the vet prescence. Hopefully the vets are slowing enough to hurt Oakland. I think this staff can keep the Raiders disciplined enough to keep the AFC West very interesting late into the season.

Here's an article from Silver and Black Pride what they expect the roster to look like, and its strengths and weaknesses. https://www.silverandblackpride.com/2018/5/21/17377080/pre-training-camp-53-man-roster-predictions-with-starters

they know their roster and players better than I do, but here's hoping to an improved AFC West, still interesting up to week 17. That'll make it that much more heartbreaking when the Chiefs win their third straight AFC West title.