Play Anticipation

[Mr. Scot]

Quick note on something that happened yesterday which raised an eyebrow...

At one point when we were in the red zone, members of the Raiders secondary were calling out our routes ahead of the play...and they were getting it right. Fellow O-Line fan MHS831 also mentioned that it seemed like the Raiders defensive line knew what was coming on the final play.

Now granted, that final play could just be an example of a team guessing right. Calling out our routes, though? That's a concern. Pair the two together and it makes you wonder.

There's no film of our offense to go on (unless you count film of LSU or the Saints) so it's kind of hard to attribute this to really good scouting.

So how do you suppose something like this occurs?

[raz]

i've been wondering the same thing.  first time i heard it i think was the 2nd quarter.  def before the half.  something fishy is going on

[Waldo]

I wonder what that was in game, even the announcer mentioned it. Maybe because without a crowd the D could hear more of what the O was saying and picked it all up as the game went on? If not, yikes. The possibilities don't seem great.

[Mr. Scot]

If it were the Patriots, I know what I'd be thinking 

[Mr. Scot]

Just now, Waldo said:

I wonder what that was in game, even the announcer mentioned it. Maybe because without a crowd the D could hear more of what the O was saying and picked it all up as the game went on? If not, yikes. The possibilities don't seem great.

That's a thought, but they'd still have to have some understanding of the terminology.

If we're being predictable, that's something that'll need to be corrected.

[gakonline]

1 minute ago, Mr. Scot said:

Quick note on something that happened yesterday which raised an eyebrow...

At one point when we were in the red zone, members of the Raiders secondary we're calling out our routes ahead of the play, and they were getting it right. Fellow O-Line fan MHS831 also mentioned that it seemed like the Raiders defensive line knew what was coming on the final play.

Now granted, that final play could just be an example of a team guessing right. Calling out our routes, though? That's a concern. Pair the two together and it makes you wonder.

There's no film of our offense to go on (unless you count film of LSU or the Saints) so it's kind of hard to attribute this to really good scouting.

So how do you suppose something like this occurs?

I heard one of the announcers mention this during the game when Teddy almost threw an INT to Anderson down the seam. The announcer said the Raiders were yelling “GO” before the ball was snapped thinking we were sending receivers on go/fly routes. 

[hepcat]

Maybe Brady didn't change up his terminology from LSU and the Raiders studied the Tigers offense from last season

[Ja Rhule]

Yea.  Announcers said Raiders knew the plays Panthers were calling.  On one play all 3 WRs went vertical and raiders switched from zone to men.  They even drop 3 of their LBs deep into coverage the second ball was snapped.

[Waldo]

3 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

That's a thought, but they'd still have to have some understanding of the terminology.

If we're being predictable, that's something that'll need to be corrected.

I agree. I am also interested in if other teams had this issue.

How can you be predictable enough with no film or history of our entire staff in the NFL at all to be that predictable? So weird

[Mr. Scot]

2 minutes ago, hepcat said:

Maybe Brady didn't change up his terminology from LSU and the Raiders studied the Tigers offense from last season

Legit possibility...

I can't remember who it was but some team last year used a similar tactic, studying somebody's college offense to get an idea what they'd do.

(might have been Kingsbury)

[t96]

Watched the game with no sound so never caught any of that... That is, troubling, to say the least.

[Wes21]

If Brady is trying to run the Saints offense and not his own spin on it, there is an incredible amount of film for the defense to gameplan around.  I remember when the Lions had Joe Lombardi calling the plays and he was trying to run the Saints offense without tweaking it.  It was a horrible mistake and teams knew what was coming.  First, because obviously the Saints offense had an incredible amount of film out there to study.  But secondly, because the Saints change personnel so dang much.  Constantly changing personnel is great if its done right, but when its not done right it just shows your cards and narrows down the play selection the defense should be prepared for.  After the Lions played the Saints with Lombardi as the playcaller, Drew Brees said after the game that he knew what the Lions were running like 90% of the time.

In the end the fact that we hung 30 on them says that while they were able to guess some plays right, they certainly didn't have our number.

[DeAngelo Beason]

The NFL is an incestuous business.  It's highly likely somebody coached someone who played for someone who knew someone who coached for someone else, etc, etc...  Plus, a good bit of the terminology and "codespeak" is used multiple teams from similar coaching trees.  Plus, I think some of the looks may have made it obvious.  These guys live, breath, and die football and x's and o's, so I think even without film they are able to recognize certain packages and how those packages may be executed during a play.

[t96]

FWIW Gruden gets sh(t on a lot here and around the media/fanbases, but he really is a very good coach who prepares as much as anyone. Granted, even if the Raiders staff did some crazy amount of scouting of Brady at LSU or whatever, this shouldn't happen.