The Raiders made a change at defensive coordinator this week, but there’s only so much that John Pagano is going to be able to change in a few days with the same players who were unsuccessful enough that Ken Norton Jr. lost his job.
Like many other coaches pushed into a new role by an in-season firing, Pagano is talking about taking things off the plate so that players can think less while playing faster. Pagano said he wants his players to “see ball, go get ball” and talked about where they need to improve.
“I talked to these guys this week about we need to do simple better,” Pagano said, via NBC Sports Bay Area. “What is simple? It’s fundamentals of covering. It’s tackling. It’s communicating. It’s catching the ball when it comes. We’ve had opportunities. It’s not like we’re out there struggling and straining to dive and layout for the thing. It’s hit us in the hands where we’ve had many, many opportunities.”
Those opportunities have resulted in zero interceptions, which is the first time a team has done that through 10 games, and a league-low six takeaways overall. They are also last in the league with 14 sacks, so it won’t take much for Pagano to show improvement although doing so with the same cast of characters may not be easy.
