Defensive Coordinator / Staff search begins

[Chris 44]

I'm extremely pro aggression on both sides of the ball and extremely pro blitz if coached well so I would be happy with Graham

What would it take for him to make a lateral move? Work for DQ? more money? Are we a more stable organization? I guess not knowing who your HC is going to be may be a factor.

 

[skinsinparadise]

 

[DWinzit]

^ He sure will look good in B & G with Pat graham on the sidelines

 

[SkinsNumberOne]

How Patrick Graham’s adaptability spurred Raiders’ defensive renaissance

Las Vegas' defensive coordinator has combined past experiences with lessons from Bill Belichick providing a base for his approach.

www.nytimes.com

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How Patrick Graham’s adaptability spurred Raiders’ defensive renaissance​

The Raiders have been the model of consistency over the past 20 seasons in one category: bad defense. From 2003-2022, they ranked 31st in points allowed per drive (2.54). This season, defensive coordinator Patrick Graham performed a minor miracle.

The Raiders spent the second-least amount of money on defense and their second-highest-paid player, Chandler Jones, didn’t play a down for them. Yet, Graham engineered arguably the best defense the Raiders have had in the last two decades. They finished 12th in points allowed per drive and eighth in defensive DVOA.

Graham began his NFL coaching career in New England as an assistant where he was tasked with a discipline that has become a rite of passage for young Patriots coaches called padding. Padding is a practice in which a coach watches the film of another team and diagrams each one of their plays. That had to be done with meticulous detail when working for Bill Belichick. Each game could take up to eight hours to pad.

“So through the pad, it trained my eyes to be able to look at the tape and, OK, I could see a bunch of stuff at one time and be able to draw it because otherwise, you’re going to just keep rewinding, rewinding, rewinding, and it’s going to take too long to pad the game,” Graham said. “So that’s something in terms of just how to see the game, that came from New England. And I think it helps me now as a play caller because I can figure out quickly what opponents are doing and get an idea.”

One of the most important lessons Graham learned from Belichick was figuring out how offenses wanted to play and how to take it away. For a team to beat them, they would have to do it with their offhand. But it’s not always easy to identify what an offense wants to do. Everyone knows who the offense wants to get the ball to on third down, but what about the other aspects of their offense that allow them to get into a groove?

...“Are they trying to run to the bubble? Are they trying to cut back to the three-technique? Are they always running everything to the left side because they’re trying to crack? That training (padding) helped me to get to what’s the main thing that offenses want to do,” Graham said.

After leaving New England, Graham coached the defensive line for Steve Spagnuolo with the Giants in 2016. There he learned Spagnuolo’s pressure packages, which are as extensive and exotic as you’ll find in the league. He went to Green Bay in 2017 and coached linebackers with Mike Pettine and was the defensive run game coordinator. Under Pettine, he became more versed in quarters or cover 4 which he’s slowly implemented more as a play caller.

He got his first defensive coordinator job in 2019 with Miami under Brian Flores, with whom he worked in New England. He went back to his roots and ran a more Patriots-like system, calling predominately man coverage, blitzing and mixing up his fronts. Creating confusion on early downs with multiple fronts is something Graham hangs his hat on.

“I’m by nature more of a front guy,” Graham said. “You want to minimize the run game and you want to eliminate explosive pass plays. So how do you do that? If you can bring more people into it that have to be decision-makers, the better off you’ll be to have a chance for negative play.”

Graham knows the quarterbacks do the most studying and are usually the most prepared for a game mentally, so his philosophy is to force everyone else on the offense to make decisions. Testing non-quarterbacks increases the chances to force mistakes.

...One of the first signs that the Raiders’ defense was truly transforming into a formidable unit was when they held the high-flying Dolphins’ offense coming off of a bye week to only 20 points. This game was emblematic of Graham’s philosophy of making the offense play off-handed. They started by taking away the explosive outside runs. Against the Raiders, the Dolphins didn’t have one explosive run (carry of 10 yards or more) and their fourth-worst EPA per rush game of the season.

“To the untrained eye, it seemed like a bunch of different plays,” Graham said. “Yeah, I mean, what’s the main objective? I’m not going to give away stuff like that, but like, what was the main objective of the run game?”

“Try to get outside?” I guessed.

...“Yeah, and then like, so like, let’s take away that and make them run somewhere else. And, you know, but just get to it quickly, get it communicated to the players so they can execute and then minimize their strength and try to make them play left-handed.”

There are a lot of coaches who say that they tailor their scheme to the strengths of their players but when the rubber meets the road, they revert to what they know best. What we’ve seen in the five years that Graham has been a coordinator is adaptability — the one quality that Belichick’s disciples failed to replicate when they branched out.

Of course, there may not be a person on the earth with the football knowledge to reinvent himself year after year as Belichick can, but Graham has shown signs of transference of Belichick’s most important trait: being scheme-gnostic.

What a great read. Great article man. It has so much great insight that you want to see, you want to see the real analysis these guys do, not empty comments like "I like teaching turnovers" - I mean, that's so devoid of anything. One level deeper is "I really go over stripping the ball" - sure, but anyone can SAY that. This has some real meat to it.

Graham is a Flores disciple, so that's encouraging. I want opposing QBs not know what the fuck they're looking at.

I agree, and I don't think it was personnel that was limiting us there. I do think we had bad coaching up and down (down to the position coaches, especially DBs, with the crazy communication issues early in the season - just so BAD) - and that led to overly simple schemes, heavy usage no matter what the offense showed, little adaptation - and the results followed.

 

[skinsinparadise]

Was just watching Benjamin Albright, insider type mostly for Denver, in an interview -- thinks Graham would be a homerun hire. Only caution from him is he thinks he can leave for a HC job soon after.

 

[skinsinparadise]

 

[RWJ]

KaBoom!!!!

 

[skinsinparadise]

 

[Conn]

Good news. We aren't on the list so far.

I mean, a guy isn’t gonna schedule DC interviews while he’s in the middle of trying to convince teams he still has HC prestige. We’re not out of danger yet, not by a long shot.

 

[Riggo44]

I'm increasingly intrigued by Graham. My initial reaction is "ew, Raiders. He sucks!"

But reading more, his Flores system approach makes me more interested. I love that high pressure, exotic system

 

[Conn]

Loved that Graham article, very interesting insight.

Reminds me of seeing an interview with McVay and how he started out just diagramming plays (what Graham is calling “padding” here, which I hadn’t heard before) for Jon Gruden. And how it was grueling work that not every assistant starts with, but how he thought it seeded his brain with so many varied concepts and taught him to recognize things quickly and puzzle piece things together. Basically attributes a lot of his early learning to that task. Now he has almost a photographic memory, so maybe it’s different for him. But seems like a good sign that Graham also went through that process for a legendarily detail-oriented coach in Belichick.

 

[DWinzit]

I'm increasingly intrigued by Graham. My initial reaction is "ew, Raiders. He sucks!"

But reading more, his Flores system approach makes me more interested. I love that high pressure, exotic system

Same! I honestly didn't know who he was before today and love that he worked with Flores like he did

 

[DWinzit]

Does having a defensive head coach turn off some DC candidates?

 

[36ST21]

I don’t know man. He’s like a startup founder pitching investors on pixie dust. He has an innate ability to shine in interviews

Coach, Rah, please snow the Giants. Please please please pleasepleasepleaseplease PLEASE snow the Giants.

 

[HailYeah]

doing some snooping on the raiders reddit and it’s mostly all positive about Graham or who they call PG. some say they’d want to keep him if possible, some are okay moving on but only for a fresh start and of course a few (very few) who don’t care for him.

 

[bowhunter]

What are y'all seeing that I'm not? From what I've seen, his defenses have historically been bad. Here are the rankings during his SEVEN years as a Defensive Coordinator. From that I don't any warm fuzzies about his taking the league by storm with innovation, out thinking his opponents, making the most of his roster, etc. (Source https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2025/opp.htm#all_team_stats )

2019 Dolphins Def Ranking #32 (Dead last)
2020 NYG Def Ranking #9 (significant improvement from #30)
2021 NYG Def Ranking #24 (huge fall from prev)
2022 LVR Def Ranking #26 (same rank as 2021 LVR)
2023 LVR Def Ranking #9
2024 LVR Def Ranking #24
2025 LVR Def Ranking #25

If I'm Dan Quinn, I'm not about to hitch my wagon to a DC who thrives in mediocrity. He needs someone to help turn this team around and allow them to thrive. The Yale thing implies "smart" , players interviews imply "cool" but his record implies "average." I'm not in love yet

 

[Riggo44]

Graham in LV was much better than that, yes his defenses gave up a lot of points--but that offense was awful with turnover machine and didn't stay on the field, as I understand it. However, he was middle of the pack in yards in an awful situation. I really think he is underrated.

 

[skinsinparadise]

Seems like Keim is stuck on the idea that D coordinator -- Morris or Ulbrich. Apparently Ulbrich hasn't been let go yet.

I've never heard much of Raheem Morris as some great X and O's guy, more of a motivator. Though looking at his coordinator stats, its better than I thought

Raheem Morris Record, Statistics, and Category Ranks | Pro-Football-Reference.com

Get Stats, Coaching Records, Team Ranks, Coordinators, and more for Raheem Morris on Pro-football-reference.com.

www.pro-football-reference.com

 

[skinsinparadise]

Don't be surprised if the Falcons attempt to keep Ulbrich at defensive coordinator. That could be part of the plan eventually, with Ulbrich staying under a new head coach.

NFL coach movement intel on every team: What we're hearing on possible changes, rising candidates

We have the latest buzz on all 32 coaching staffs, including Mike Tomlin's Steelers future.

www.espn.com

 

[skinsinparadise]