Raiders’ shoddy offensive line play forces Josh McDaniels’ hand

Two first-quarter pass plays that ended in sacks Monday night against the Packers illustrate why the Raiders’ offense is struggling.

In both instances, Raiders coach and play-caller Josh McDaniels dialed up plays and personnel groupings that sent five targets on pass routes. That meant the five-man offensive line was required to protect the quarterback with no help.

On both plays, the Packers countered with four pass rushers. The five-on-four matchup edge is one the Raiders should have taken advantage of. Instead, the Packers’ four overwhelmed the Raiders’ five.

The message the Packers sent with their two drive-ending sacks is one McDaniels had to deal with the rest of the night and probably played a role in some decisions.

For the remainder of the game, McDaniels wasn’t certain his offensive line could hold up in pass protection without help. This has been the case all season.

The problem has affected everything from play-calling to personnel groupings. It’s also resulted in quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo playing rushed rather than confident, unable to consistently sit in the pocket and let plays and patterns develop downfield. Raiders quarterbacks have been sacked 15 times — 10th most in the NFL — and the urgency they are playing with has contributed to the eight interceptions they have thrown, seven of them by Garoppolo.

To help create more comfortable passing pockets, the Raiders have been forced to take pass-game weapons off the field in favor of more pass protectors.

“The more you put out, the less protection you have and the more the emphasis goes on just sheer one-on-one matchups in protection,” McDaniels said Tuesday, a day after the Raiders defeated the Packers 17-13 to improve to 2-3. “At the end of the day, football always is going to come down to those things, matchups.”

But by deploying extra players to pass blocking, often in the form of a tight end or additional tackle or even both, it creates situations in which only two wide receivers are available on pass routes.

“It’s a give and a take,” McDaniels said.

At the start of the season, the Raiders were confident an offensive line that progressively improved last season would be a strength of the team. Instead, there has been regression, notably at right tackle, where Jermaine Eluemunor has struggled. It came to a head Monday when he gave way to second-year tackle Thayer Munford, who ended up playing 78 percent of the offensive snaps to Eluemunor’s 25 percent.

McDaniels said Eluemunor was dealing with an injury, but he also suggested Munford, who has rotated in for Eluemunor at various points this season, was in line for more playing time. Munford was on the field when the Raiders marched 75 yards on 10 plays for the go-ahead touchdown.

The effect the problem is having on the decision-making is obvious. And it’s only compounded by the offensive line struggling to run block, too.

That was apparent in McDaniels’ play-calling immediately after a Robert Spillane interception that set up the Raiders at the Packers’ 7-yard-line. And also in his decision to not call timeout late in the first half, or when he opted to kick a field goal rather than go for it on fourth down in the closing minutes of the game.

McDaniels pointed out how his perspective has changed since becoming a head coach after spending most of his career as an offensive coordinator.

“When you’re the play-caller, and that’s all you are, you want to do everything. You don’t ever want to kick it. When I was an offensive coordinator, that’s what I felt,” McDaniels said. “But when you’re the head coach, you’re trying to understand the entirety of the game.”