Tony Sparano Has Freedom to Make Nothing-to-Lose Changes to Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders are such an ugly 0-4 that they decided to take the drastic measure of firing head coach Dennis Allen over the bye week. Owner Mark Davis and general manager Reggie McKenzie were clearly trying to send a message to the players and coaches that losing as they have recently is not something they will tolerate.
It’s hard to blame them after 10 straight losses by an average margin over 13 points dating back to last season, and naming Tony Sparano interim head coach was the sensible thing to do. Almost immediately, Sparano started making minor changes that he hopes will help the Raiders become a competitive football team on the field.
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Now that it’s clear Sparano is willing to make changes, he needs to make them as if he has nothing to lose. Small changes during the week should just be the beginning.
Sparano started by rearranging the locker room in the hopes that the team will feel like they are getting a fresh start. He also had the team bury a football in the ground to symbolize their 0-4 start. The Raiders don’t literally get to start fresh, but they have an opportunity to do things differently going forward.
"We’re doing things faster,” Sparano said Monday via Raiders.com. “We’ve changed a ton of things right now. The locker room is changed right now, the practice schedules are changed.
"The week will continuously taper down for the players so they have more gas in their tank when they get to the ball game, those type of things. We’ve added different periods to work on fundamentals, to work on fits, to work on some of the techniques that fly by in our league right now.”
Changing the team’s practice habits makes sense, but the more important changes should be on game day. A quicker pace at practice and a period devoted to fundamentals are just a tip of the iceberg of the positive changes Sparano needs to make.
Of course, he isn’t going to be able to make every change he wants to make all at once. He can make several changes right away, and several more in the coming weeks. It might take more than a week for the Raiders to flush their system of the infection known as a losing.
Personnel Changes
McKenzie puts the roster together, but Sparano is responsible for the depth chart and how playing time is divvyed up. Several players need their playing time cut back or eliminated altogether.
Sparano can start at a position directly related to what he likes to do—run the ball. The Raiders are averaging just 3.4 yards per carry and a league-worst 61.5 rushing yards per game. No running back has a single rush longer than 12 yards this season.
The bulk of the carries have so far gone to running back Darren McFadden, but he’s proving that he can’t get the job done. Maurice Jones-Drew and Latavius Murray have combined for just a third of McFadden’s carries, and it’s time for that to change.
If Jones-Drew and Murray aren’t more effective, Sparano can always go back to McFadden. The Raiders signed Jones-Drew to start and drafted Murray’s rare athleticism for a reason. That should be enough to get them touches ahead of McFadden, who is currently making Oakland’s offensive line look much worse than it is.
That doesn’t mean the Raiders can’t use McFadden at all. With the problems the Raiders have had at wide receiver, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to split McFadden out wide and have him run routes on occasion. There is also the Wildcat, which the Raiders have run with McFadden this season.
Among the more controversial moves Sparano could consider is a switch at quarterback. Matt McGloin may be a better option right now to win games than rookie Derek Carr is.
The original plan was to let Carr learn on the bench, and it may have been smarter to let him do that. The Raiders may have rushed into the process with Carr and now feel like they can’t go back. In reality, they should be able to bench Carr while still declaring him the future, and they can always go back to him later in the season to get him more experience.
At worst, the Raiders should make McGloin the primary backup. That change appears to be coming, as the team wouldn’t commit to Matt Schaub as the backup for the first time Monday.
“That’s one of the things that I won’t give up,” Sparano said via Raiders.com. “We’ll keep that information to us, as we move forward here, and that’s what we’ll do. Both those guys got equal time today during the course of practice, which was good for us. It was good to get those guys reps today and they got equal time today.”
On defense, there’s not a whole lot more that the Raiders can do that they didn’t do last week. It’s up to McKenzie to find linebackers that can play in lieu of the injured Nick Roach (concussion), Sio Moore (ankle) and now Kaluka Maiava (placed on injured reserve Tuesday).
| Miles Burris | 297 | -14.7 |
| Ray-Ray Armstrong | 1 | 0.0 |
| Bojay Filimoeatu | 59 | -2.1 |
Miles Burris has been the definition of availability over productivity. Sparano has to realize that Burris is hurting the Raiders defensively and find a way to convince McKenzie that he needs someone else in there. After claiming Ray-Ray Armstrong Tuesday, Oakland’s two other healthy inside linebackers are both former undrafted free agents.
Sparano can only do so much to help the defense. The Raiders already started giving defensive end C.J. Wilson more playing time ahead of Antonio Smith on early downs. The secondary also needs some help, but the best Sparano can do is recommend that rookie T.J. Carrie and Neiko Thorpe see more snaps until D.J. Hayden is cleared to return.
There’s just no guarantee Carrie and Thorpe will be any better than Carlos Rogers and Chimdi Chekwa as the team’s No. 2 and No. 3 cornerbacks. Although average, no one has played well enough to challenge Tarell Brown for his job.
Scheme Changes
Fans have been clamoring for the team to use more of fullback Marcel Reece for years. At some point, the Raiders need to realize how much more productive the offense is when it runs through Reece both in the passing game and perhaps even in the running game.
Reece is nursing a sprain of some sort, so Sparano may not be able to implement something for him in Week 6, but just about everyone knows getting Reece more involved is a positive step for the offense. Reece can be a problem for opposing linebackers in coverage if the Raiders actively seek to find him matchups.
According to Josh Dubow of The Associated Press, Oakland’s offense has a league-low 13 negative plays on offense. While that seems like a positive, it’s actually a reflection of the conservative nature of the offense so far this season.
The Raiders need to create more big plays in both the running game and the passing game, and there are schematic changes Sparano can make to accomplish that task. For starters, the Raiders need to run to the edge with more frequency.
So far this season, the Raiders are attacking the edge just 26.8 percent of the time, according to Pro Football Focus statistics (subscription required). The Raiders are also showing a huge tendency to run right, especially power right with left guard Gabe Jackson pulling to that side.
“It’s no secret that my philosophy is to run the football, to keep games tight and try to be able to get yourself in a situation where you can win football games at the end of a game,” Sparano said Monday, via Raiders.com.
If Sparano wants the running game to carry the offense, the Raiders will have to be less predictable and willing to take a negative play here and there for the possibility to create a big play. McFadden’s speed is one of his best assets, but he’s routinely getting stacked up after running into the back of the offensive line for short gains. Getting McFadden his space has to be one of the first orders of business if he continues to start.
In the passing game, the Raiders also need to take more chances. Carr is attempting just nine percent of his passes beyond 20 yards, according to Pro Football Focus, which is well below average.
As a rookie starting quarterback, Carr is understandably playing it safe. When the running game isn’t giving him any help, it makes sense for him to try to move the chains instead of go over the top. Except defenses are compacted, and that has affected both the running game and the passing game.
Among the things Carr needs to do better is attack the middle of the field. So far this season, he’s reluctant to throw over the middle beyond 10 yards. It’s a dangerous area for a rookie quarterback to operate, but the risk is often worth the reward.
| Att. | 7 | 1 | 4 |
| Comp. | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Yds. | 29 | 0 | 102 |
| TD/INT | - | - | 1 TD |
| Att. | 9 | 11 | 10 |
| Comp. | 5 | 5 | 7 |
| Yds. | 64 | 67 | 97 |
| TD/INT | 1 TD | 1 INT | - |
Tight ends can be a rookie quarterback’s best friend, and they often work the middle of the field and the seams effectively. Carr and the Raiders need to find a way to work the middle of the field and deep to unlock bigger plays.
On defense, the Raiders need to simplify and be more aggressive. Two weeks ago against the Miami Dolphins, the Raiders failed to line up properly against the trips formation on multiple occasions. The Raiders have also often played so far off the wide receivers that it’s easy for opposing offenses to throw bubble screens and quick hitches for first downs.
Sparano needs to flex his newfound power over the defense. Allen was a defensive-minded head coach, so the concept of executing a simple-to-understand defense was perhaps lost in the fact that he was so knowledgeable on the subject.
“I’ll be involved, no question about that,” Sparano said about how involved he would be with the defense, via Raiders.com. “I’ve met with every coach individually and shared my beliefs and what I like to see happen and pretty much what kind of direction that we want to head. I’ll be involved. I’ll know the game plan. I’ll make my business to be in there.”
Defensive coordinator Jason Tarver is such a smart person, some of his concepts may be hard for defenders to understand. As an offensive-minded head coach, Sparano can push for a simplified version of the scheme that hopefully the veteran defense can execute more regularly than they have over the past two seasons.
Sparano isn’t going to make every change he can make in one week, but he has incentive to show players how things will be different under his leadership in Week 6. Some of the changes may not yield positive results, but the Raiders have nothing to lose by trying.
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