Chiefs vs Raiders: Breaking Down The O-Line Tape

By Bewsaf Nov 13, 2010, 11:01am CST

Week #9

Last Sunday the Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Oakland Raiders in overtime. There was many missed opportunities for both teams but the big story was how Oakland defensed the KC running attack.

The Raiders were able to do a couple of things to thwart the Chiefs running attack: 1. Controlling the line of scrimmage with some match-up problems, 2. Aggressiveness at the point of attack and meeting blockers on the Chiefs side of the line of scrimmage.

Let's take a look at those belated O-Line grades.

	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	00
Percent Scale

Please refer to the Chiefs Preseason: Breaking Down The O-Line Tape - Primer at the bottom of this article for any inquiries into the method used to grade the lineman.
Click on Bewsaf Past Posts at the bottom of this post for any past o-line articles you might have missed.

Performance Perspective

60% or below		70%		80%		90% or above
60% is an indication the lineman was some defenders boy toy.		70% is a rough day in both the run or passing game. The lineman probably got notice a lot and won't hold a job scoring 70% every week.		80% is a solid day for run blocking but only an average day for pass blocking. Players strive to be above 80% every game.		Player had great game run or pass blocking if they score a 90%. All pro players are consistently in the 90%.

RUN BLOCKING

PASS BLOCKING

	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100		10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100
Percent Scale											Percent Scale
Albert											Albert
Waters											Waters
Wiegmann											Wiegmann
Lilja											Lilja
Richardson											Richardson
Pope											Pope
Moeaki											Moeaki

Run & Pass Blocking Notes:

This was the first game that the Chiefs really had a hard time getting their running attack going. The Raiders did 3 major things that prevented the Chiefs from having their way.
Raider success #1: The Raiders lined up with eight men in the box 8 times in the first half and nine defenders in the box another 8 times in the first half. That is a total of 16 times that the Raiders had eight or more defenders dedicated to the run. And when all those defenders where in the box...the corners were in press coverage (which means they were close the line of scrimmage to help with the run). The Raiders game would have been the ideal time to go with a halfback pass.
Raider success #2: Oakland's front four were strong and tall. That means they had long arms and could extend themselves away from the offensive lineman and get off their blocks (which they did). Waters, Wiegmann, and Lilja all had trouble with the Raiders defensive tackles (both of them). Our interior three were pushed around to the point that they had a hard time even redirecting the defenders.
Only Wiegmann graded out as having an average day in the run game. But that was only do to the blocking schemes and the amount of down blocks or second level blocks Wiegmann was called to do. When he was called to take on a defensive tackle head on...he usually got pushed around.
Wiegmann was driven 7 times, Lilja 4, Richardson 3, Waters 2, Pope 2, and Moeaki 2.
Moeaki, for the first time, was put on his butt when pulling across the formation for kick out blocks. Which leads me to the Raiders success #3.
Raiders success #3: The Raiders did not try and string the running play out and then run it down with the LBs (like most every other team the Chiefs have played). Oakland was aggressive on the end of the line of scrimmage and attacked up-field and met the pull-block, fullback lead, or the tight end trying to set the corner on the Chiefs side of the line of scrimmage (about a yard and a half). This caused the stretch play to...well, not really have much stretch. It cause the running play to take place from the offensive tackle inward. And since the Raiders were handling the offensive interior lineman then the run plays were stopped cold...or...were bent all the way to backside. Normally the running back cutting the play all the way to the backside is what the zone blocking wants to do. But in the Raiders game, they had 8 or 9 in the box and the backside had defenders that were unaccounted for (therefore unblocked). A perfect storm of success from the Raiders to stop the KC running attack.
The pass protection was, for the most part, not that bad. When blocks were not made or the Raiders sent more than could be accounted for...then it stood out. The pass protection got better as the game went along.
At one point, Lilja got beat 6 out of 8 passing plays by his defender. A very rough day by Lilja in the passing protection area.
Richardson is looking much more comfortable in pass protection. He struggled much less in the Oakland game. But then again, Oakland is more about power than speed.
There were few sacks that were hard to hand out. #1 With 38 seconds left in the first half and 1st and goal at the 8...the Chiefs call a pass play that includes some miss direction line play that has Waters pull right. The Raiders dial up a corner blitz right to the area that Waters vacates. No missed assignments, just the right call against the Chiefs. Sack assigned to Weis in my book.
Hard to call missed block #2: Raiders run a loop stunt and Lilja misses the stunt. His defender flushes Cassel forward and another defender, who had not beat his man, makes the tackle. missed block given to Lilja.
Hard to call missed block #3: Oakland defender lines up very wide against Albert. Cassel runs a play action stretch play toward Albert's side and has the dummy hand-off to the running back and sets up behind where the tackle (Albert) originally had lined up. It didn't take much for the defender to get to Cassel and avoid Albert. Still, Albert receives the missed block.

SECOND LEVEL BLOCKING

POINT OF ATTACK BLOCK

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Percent Scale											Percent Scale
Albert											Albert
Waters											Waters
Wiegmann											Wiegmann
Lilja											Lilja
Richardson											Richardson
Pope	N/A										Pope
Moeaki	N/A										Moeoki

Graphic bars from draftboardinsiders.com

Second Level Blocking Notes:

The tight ends got pushed around against the Raiders.
The Raiders actually went into more of a traditional 4-3 in the red zone. That allowed the Chiefs to run a little bit easier.
Just as a side note: The announcer missed a couple of plays that were screens and made it sound like the Oakland pressure was bearing down on the Chiefs. Well, the defenders got through because the Chiefs were trying to run a screen. I think Cassel panicked a couple of times on screens that if he had stood in there and took the hit then the screen would have went for big yards. Along with that however, is the fact that the Raiders did do a good job at sniffing out some of those screens.
As another side note: The Chiefs ran a tackle over formation where the left side consisted of Albert, Richardson, Waters, then Wiegmann...with Lilja and Pope on the right side. I thought this would have been a good formation to go to more often if the interior three an the tight ends were getting pushed around. It putts two bigger tackles at the point of attack and conceivably has Lilja pulling in that direction. Would liked to have seen more of this wrinkle with the Raiders (considering what they were doing to the Chiefs).
The Chiefs used a slide protection 6 times in the first half to confuse the defenders.

OTHER SEASON STATS