Raiders Were Among NFL’s Best in Shutting Down Top WRs Last Season

raiders gareon conley

Getty Oakland Raiders defensive back Gareon Conley.

It’s not a big secret that the Raiders‘ pass defense has failed to impress over the last several years. Even in 2016 when the team went 12-4, the pass defense wasn’t great. The team has tried very hard to fix this issue by using first-round picks on three defensive backs between 2013 and 2017. D.J. Hayden, who drafted in 2013, failed to play up to his potential in Oakland and he’s already with another team. The jury is still out on Karl Joseph and Gareon Conley, but they will have their chance to prove they were worth the investment in 2019. Despite having a poor year as an overall unit, the Raiders secondary ranked among the league’s best in certain statistics.


Raiders Were Among NFL’s Best in Shutting Down Top WRs Last Season

According to a statistic from Football Outsiders, the 2018 Raiders had the second-best defense in the NFL against opposing teams’ number one receivers.

Considering the Raiders play in a division with the likes of Tyreek Hill and Keenan Allen, that’s an impressive feat. The unit as a whole struggled greatly for much of 2018, but when they had to lock down the other team’s top guy, they got the job done. Much of this was likely due to Gareon Conley’s improving play. The 2016 first-round pick had a tumultuous start to his NFL career, but he’s starting to come into his own and played very well at times during 2018.  According to Pro Football Focus, Conley had the third-highest forced incompletion rate in the NFL in 2018. Conley was a standout for the Raiders secondary in 2018, but safety Karl Joseph was actually the team’s best defender, according to PFF. With another year of experience under their belts, the Raiders should be excited about their potential for 2019.

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2019 Outlook for Raiders Secondary

With Karl Joseph entering a contract year, he’ll have to step up in 2019 to ensure that he gets paid. That’s likely why the Raiders didn’t pick up his team-option for a fifth year. Though he’s been solid, he hasn’t lived up to his draft status as a high first-round pick. What works in his favor is that Johntahn Abram, a fellow first-round safety, will be joining him in the defensive backfield. He hasn’t had a lot of talent next to him in the last few years, so having Abram to help should bode well for Joseph. The Raiders should feel good about their secondary heading into 2019. They added the versatile veteran LaMarcus Joyner and Daryl Worley will get a chance to play a full season in the silver and black. Rookie second-round pick Trayvon Mullen should also be a really good depth option for the team and has a chance to start once the team gets further into the season.

The group is going to be very young and that’s a good thing. The Raiders were very old a year ago and that didn’t work out well at all. Injecting youth into this unit may come with some growing pains, but it could pay off big down the road. The aforementioned Gareon Conley is poised to be the star of this unit. After coming on incredibly strong towards the end of the season last year, he’ll look to build off that momentum and become a consistent shutdown corner for the Raiders. Daryl Worley thinks that Conley and he can rival some of the great Raiders CB tandems. There’s no doubt that defensive coordinator Paul Guenther is hoping he’s right.

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