Bill Belichick will match wits with former Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels today. Both Belichick and McDaniels know each other well so there aren’t many secrets. Despite that, both will have change ups for each other today in an effort to break tendencies and show some different things.

McDaniels has been pretty consistent with what the Raiders do offensively this season. They want to run the football, play-action pass and attack all three levels in the passing game.

Las Vegas is old school. They will line up in the I-Formation and pound the football. Power, ISO and toss are all staple 21 personnel plays for the Raiders

Diagram 1: Power: Power is as old school as it gets for man-gap running plays. Double at the point of attack, kick out and lead through with the guard. The Raiders run a lot of Power and running back Josh Jacobs does a great job of staying square and either cutting it up front side A gap or staying on path and running it off-tackle. The Patriots will see a lot of power today. Splitting the frontside double and collisioning the guard in the hole will be key.

Diagram 2: BOB: The Raiders run a fair amount of isolation plays including back on backer plays like this. It is a lead play but it allows the back to stick it or cut it. Jacobs does a good job of staying on track on this play and taking the cut if it’s there.

Diagram 3: Misdirection: The Raiders will run man-gap and zone misdirection. Here they run counter zone. Plays like this are great complements to Power and Lead plays. The Patriots linebackers will be on a yo-yo all afternoon. They have to play disciplined in the run game. They cannot overrun things.

Play-Action

Like his predecessor, Jon Gruden, McDaniels have developed an effective play-action passing game that stresses secondaries. The Patriots linebackers and secondary will have to be disciplined with their eyes because if they jump stuff early guys will get behind them in the play-action passing game.

Diagram 4: Play-Action: The Raiders do a great job of marrying their running game to their passing game. Here they go with six offensive lineman to give the illusion that they are running the football. Earlier in this game, they used a similar motion with Fabian Moreau and ran power. Same thing here except they throw the play-action pass off of it.

McDaniels does a great of packaging his plays. He knows how the Patriots defense operates and he will attack their weaknesses. He will do it doing what he always. Running the football.