3 takeaways from the Las Vegas Raiders' loss to the Los Angeles Chargers as Davante Adams excels during debut
Week one of the 2022 NFL season is in the books. The AFC West saw an immediate divisional game as the Las Vegas Raiders traveled to play the Los Angeles Chargers. The Chargers came out victorious with a score of 24-19.
Here are my three biggest takeaways from the Raiders versus Chargers game:
#1. Can either team expect any legitimate production in the runnning game?
This should be fairly quick. This past Sunday, the Raiders and Chargers finished with 64 and 76 rushing yards respectively. Las Vegas did so on 13 attempts, compared to 31 attempts for Los Angeles. Based on that, there is some hope for the Silver and Black to turn things around.
They were expected to be one of the most effective rushing teams in the league, looking at the strength of this offensive line lying on the ground game. Especially when factoring in Josh McDaniels’ track record in that regard and their ability to go into 12 and 21 personnel. The negative game script in the second half certainly contributed to this. I thought I’d see more of a commitment to it and more than 26 snaps from their full-back and the rest of the tight-end group outside of Darren Waller.
For the Chargers, what they did in neutral settings was underwhelming, especially when they needed to run the ball. After finishing at least close to average in rushing numbers last season under Mike Lombardi, against an unproven Raiders interior D-line, only six of their 31 carries went for more than four yards. A 12-yarder by Joshua Kelley was the lone carry of more than eight. In the fourth quarter, they put up 19 yards on eight attempts.
#2. The Derek Carr to Davante Adams connection looked sharp right away
Derek Carr definitely made sure he welcomed his best friend and new number one receiver, with 17 of his 35 targets going Davante Adams’ way. He hauled in ten of those for 141 yards and a touchdown. The All-Pro receiver schooled the young L.A. corners on a nasty deep out route after nodding to the post and later on a V-release slant.
Davante Adams used CONFUSION.
It’s super effective!
https://t.co/D5ELCHVJvi
Las Vegas also put him as the number three in trips and had him work those underneath areas for some easy pitch-and-catch plays. That, along with a third-and-16 conversion, where there was too much space between the corner and safety in cover-two was too large and the receiver settled in there for a grab at the sideline. Basically, everything that was in structure, Carr hit Adams and other than one goal-line fade, the ball was typically on the money.
Now, the Chargers played way more man- or match-zone coverage that basically left Adams one-on-one than I would have anticipated, and Carr hasn’t quite built up that incredible chemistry Adams had in Green Bay with Aaron Rodgers (where the non-verbal communication was almost zen-like). But they can still get there – and Josh McDaniels will need to give them the freedom to do so.
#3. Los Angeles Chargers' Khalil Mack is terrorizing offensive tackles again
I'll admit this right away – I was wrong to put Khalil Mack as the first player outside of my NFL Top 100 Players list for 2022. His decline since the end of the 2019 season hasn’t been very inspiring. His pressure totals went from 45 to 31 two years ago on basically the same amount of snaps, and then went down to only nine this past season across seven games. While I did talk about him and Joey Bosa forming one of the most devastating duos coming off either edge, I looked at Mack as more of the Robin for that tandem.
While Bosa did get his mostly against left tackle Kolton Miller on Sunday, Mack absolutely rag-dolled Jermaine Eluemunor and Thayer Munford on the other side before they flipped sides and things pretty much stayed the same. Altogether, he racked up three tackles for loss, three sacks and four more hits on Derek Carr.
He was ripping through the outside shoulders or going right into the chest of those tackles all day long, condensing the pocket and making the Raiders QB very uncomfortable. Mack took away his space to step into a throw to the left (which led to a pick) and ultimately got the strip-sack that wrapped up the game.
Check out my piece on the full Week 1 slate at halilsrealfootballtalk.com !