Pete Carroll exposes his own Raiders defense to give Cam Ward, Titans a roadmap to success in Las Vegas in Week 6

The Tennessee Titans are headed to face the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 6, looking to get their first back-to-back wins since November 2022. What have you done since then? Me, well I’ve embarked upon married life, had my first child, and celebrated her first birthday. So it would be nice if the Titans could clear this very low bar before I’m able to add any other major milestones in life to this depressing illustration.

The bad news is that, despite getting their first win against the Cardinals last week, a single great quarter of football—that included many hilarious Cardinals blunders to help secure the victory—does not solidify you as a competitive team! But the good news is that if there were ever a chance to get on the board twice in a row, facing this dysfunctional Raiders team is your golden opportunity to make it happen.

The Titans’ division rival Colts steamrolled the Raiders 40-6 last weekend, and Head Coach Pete Carroll shared with the media this week exactly how they did it.

Pete Carroll Reveals Key To Neutralizing Raiders Defense

In speaking with the media in Las Vegas early this week, Carroll responded to a question about pass rush ineffectiveness by focusing on the Colts’ quick passing game. “Well, just because they throw it, doesn’t mean that we had a great chance to rush, because we saw last week a bunch of really quick rhythm stuff, and we needed to cover it better and give the rush a chance. So, I think it’s different than what it just looks like from the outside, in that regard, and that’s something we have to do a better job of, for sure.“

EDGE Maxx Crosby is a perennial force to be reckoned with, and the Titans hope starting RT JC Latham will be back from his hip strain to be a big help in that department. But outside of Crosby, this Raiders defense lacks teeth. And when the quarterback they’re rushing gets the ball out quickly, they’re effectively neutralized.

Carroll is right that Daniel Jones and company ran a lot of quick and short passing concepts in Week 5. Nearly 72% of their passing offense in that game was 10 of fewer yards beyond the line of scrimmage, and roughly 61% of Jones’s passes were out in 2.5 seconds or less (per SumerSports).

There’s no question the Raiders are particularly susceptible to timing-based concepts underneath, and Carroll knows it. That’s why when he was later asked about the coverage on the back end playing a role in helping the pass rush get home, he brought up short concepts again:

“Yeah, it’s a little bit of everything. It’s not quite that easy. We have to mix our calls. We’ll take first responsibility to mix our calls so that we can try to get them out of rhythm. They stayed with a real short concept in their passing game, and we’re able to really execute really well. And so, there’s things we have to do.”

So it’s simple, right? There’s the Titans’ path to success! Well, sort of, but it’s going to take Cam Ward and company leaning into an element of their game they haven’t done as much of.

Short And Quick Passing Stats Are The Roadmap To Victory

Here’s some more statistical context on the Raiders’ major weakness for quick-developing plays, courtesy of SumerSports’ incredible new tool SumerBrain. They’ve allowed a 73.9% completion rate on passes 10 or fewer yards past the line of scrimmage, matching the league average, but their pressure rate of just 18.0% on these plays is significantly below the league average of 26.8%.

And against passes that are out in less than 2.5 seconds, the Raiders are even more vulnerable, allowing a 78.9% completion rate compared to the league average of 73.4%, and 6.8 yards per attempt versus the league average of 6.4 yards.

Last week, the Colts tore them to shreds by leaning into the short and quick stuff. Now, we all know that the Titans offense isn’t firing at nearly the same level as the Colts at the moment. But can they at least match this approach?

In terms of short passing, the answer should be yes. The Titans’ season-long percentage of passes 10 or fewer yards past the line of scrimmage is 71.34%, practically identical to the Colts’ usage in Week 5 (71.88%). The key difference here is that Daniel Jones is getting the ball out much faster on these timing-based concepts than Cam Ward. Jones got the ball out in under 2.5 seconds nearly 10 percentage points more often in Week 5 than Cam Ward has so far this season. That may not sound like a huge deal, but it’s the difference between 6th and 20th in the league so far this year.

So if there were ever a time for Cam Ward and Brian Callahan to really lean in to speeding up the operation on offense, this would be the week to do it.