News » A first year starter in New York this past season.

Much of the Raiders secondary has been re-tooled this off-season and the new additions figure to provide much needed competition to the group. The addition of Curtis Riley should provide the..."Much of the Raiders secondary has been re-tooled this off-season and the new additions figure to provide much needed competition to the group. The addition of Curtis Riley should provide the potential for some solid coverage ability in deep zones.Riley has been a fringe roster player up until 2018 bouncing around the practice squad and active rosters for Tennessee and New York as a cornerback. In his first year as a starter Riley switched to safety and hauled in 4 interceptions. He did enough to be added aa competition at safety in Oakland and could be a valuable addition as a ballhawk in the centerfield.Breaking on the ballRiley mostly played single high in 2018 and put himself in good positions to defend the pass. The Giants did run some change up coverages and Riley made the most of those opportunities. The play above is one such example. After playing cover 1 for much of the game Antonio Brown Raiders Jersey , the Giants have the Panthers offense in a 3rd and long situation. The defense is in dime personnel and both slot players bail to the deep half allowing Riley to jump an in-breaking route. In this case he comes down with an interception against Cam Newton.This is a very similar coverage but this time out of Nickel personnel. The cornerbacks are the players bailing deep allowing Riley to jump the slant from the slot receiver.Riley reads it all the way and turns this pick into a score.The play above highlights a technique that Paul Guenther teaches out of Cover 1 called “overlap.” The deep safety will drive on a crossing route while the cornerback replaces him in deep coverage.You can see the cornerback point to his man, signaling for Riley to break on the route. Raiders fans saw Reggie Nelson attempt this adjustment with poor results for the past few years. Riley has more spring in his legs and almost gets another interception here.Suspect tacklerFor all of Riley’s potential in coverage, he is lacking in the physicality department. Too many times on tape does it look like Riley has no interest in getting in on a tackle. The play above isn’t egregious but shows that Riley lacks the mentality to be a dominant safety. He sees his corner slip on the play but still jogs hoping his teammate will figure it out. Great safeties don’t do this. Even Karl Joseph who hasn’t yet met his full potential would never do this.Here Riley again is perfectly content for his teammates to make the play.Football is ultimate “want it” sport. Taking someone to the ground against their will has little to do with strength or speed and more to do with having a nasty attitude. Riley many times seems hesitant and had way too many of these on tape to just gloss over and point to his 63 solo tackles in 2018. These are admittedly cherry picked plays, but Riley has at least 2 of these every week and right now its a serious hole in his game.This tweet from Levi Damien sums up his tackling deficiencies nicely.ConclusionRiley can be an effective player as a Raider. He is young and can still improve in every area of his game with the right coaching. He has proven starting experience and can be a ballhawk in the secondary. Perhaps his best role would be as a sub-package safety where he can come in on passing downs to maximize his talents. If Lamarcus Joyner starts at Free Safety and moves to the slot in Nickel personnel Womens Bo Jackson Jersey , Riley could come in and provide range in the back end of the secondary. However he needs desperately to clean up his tacklingbefore he can be a reliable option. Raiders first-round pick Josh Jacobs hasn’t taken his first NFL snap yet, but the story of the running back’s rise to the professional ranks has apparently been enough to pique the interest of Hollywood.In an essay for earlier this year, Jacobs wrote about sleeping in his father’s car and moving from motel to motel for a couple of years while growing up in Tulsa as his father tried to land a steady job that would allow them to hold onto an apartment.“I’m never going to forget the nights spent in the back of that Suburban,” Jacobs wrote. “I’ll never forget the motels. The gunshots. The helicopters. I know what it’s like to be scared. To be hungry. To have nothing in my future but uncertainty.”Jacobs said that he’s “being hit up by big-name producers” about using those memories as the basis for a movie about his life. He said he doesn’t “feel like right now is the right time” to do that Bo Jackson Jersey , but isn’t sure what the final decision will be.“Because it’s taking the story into a deeper level,” Jacobs said, via NBCSportsBayArea.com. “It’s saying some things that I left out in the story that would probably be shown in the movie and I don’t know if I want to do it. I still have to talk to my family about it and see how they feel about it and things like that. But I haven’t really thought about it too much.”Learning the Raiders offense and getting acclimated to life in the NFL leaves little time to consider other things, so an appearance on may have to suffice for the time being.