Teams better be able to tackle against the Oakland Raiders

Teams had better be able to tackle when they take on the Oakland Raiders. Why this could be one of the NFL’s toughest teams to take down in 2019.

The Oakland Raiders are going to be tough to tackle in the 2019 season.

Why?

It’s not so much why, but who.

The Raiders had a couple of guys in last year’s top 100 for yards after the catch (Jared Cook, TE; Seth Roberts, WR) who are both on different teams for the 2019 season.

In 2019, the Raiders brought in some guys who specialize at not only creating yards after the catch, but running over guys and making people miss in the open field.

Tyrell Williams was brought in from the Los Angeles Chargers and has been known for his deep ball abilities, but something very underrated about Williams is his ability to create after the catch.

This past season, he averaged a respectable 5.1 yards after the catch per reception, but in 2017, Williams led the entire NFL in that category with 8.2.

In 2016, he ranked 6th in the NFL in that particular category.

This means that Williams’ 2017 season was a slight outlier but not an anomaly by any means. That means according to these figures, 1,020 of Williams’ 2,440 yards over the past three seasons (41.8 percent) have come after the catch.

Not bad at all, but Williams is hardly the only guy the Raiders brought in who can create.

Antonio Brown has quietly gotten better at this consistently each of the last three seasons, averaging just over three yards after the catch per reception in 2016 and watching that figure climb to 5.1 in 2017 and stay close at 4.8 in 2018.

Brown sees such a high volume of targets and not every one of them is really designed to gain YAC, but he makes the most of his opportunities, creating about a third of his yards after he has the ball in his hands.

And then there’s running back Josh Jacobs, a first-round pick out of Alabama who is expected to be the Raiders’ top running back.

No back in college football was more elusive in 2016 on a per-carry basis than Jacobs, who continued to hone that craft over the next two seasons he spent with the Crimson Tide.

He forced 38 missed tackles in the 2018 season.

According to PFF, Jacobs turned 41 percent of his carries into either a first down or a touchdown.

That’s good, right?

It was good enough for the best figure in the entire country among running backs.

With these weapons now in place, Derek Carr will look a lot better throwing the ball short. These guys can all make plays after the catch and in space, and thankfully for the Raiders faithful, this team now has a bunch of guys who are tough to take down in the open field.