Another bust for the Raiders "Less Rolando McClain is better for Raiders as LB loses play time"

[KevinJames]

ALAMEDA -- Raiders coach Dennis Allen talked about making a few "tweaks" during the bye week. One of those changes manifested itself in rookie linebacker Miles Burris supplanting Rolando McClain in the nickel defense.

In the first four games, Burris was the linebacker coming off the field whenever the Raiders went with an extra defensive back in their so-called nickel package. McClain became that guy Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons.

McClain's snaps dropped from 73 snaps against Denver on Sept. 30 to 17 against the Falcons on Sunday.

By comparison, Burris played 27 of the 77 snaps against the Broncos and all 55 against the Falcons.

Allen said he doesn't foresee getting away from this alignment, given how well Burris played against the Falcons.

"Every week, we're going to evaluate and see where we're at, but he did enough to earn the right to be back out there in nickel situations," Allen said.

McClain, a first-round draft pick in 2010, has started 34 of 37 games and arrived as the projected linchpin of the Raiders defense.

In Burris, Allen sees a young player who gets better each game.

"He's not a repeat mistake offender," Allen said. "He makes the corrections, understands football and concepts and makes adjustments."

In the postgame locker room, McClain was relatively pleased with how the defense performed.

"We played pretty good this week," McClain said. "We were locked in, had a very good week ofpractice, coming off the bye week. But they're a good team, and they made the plays they needed at the times they needed them."

With the way Reggie McKenzie has cleaned house it wouldn’t at all be surprising to see the Raiders part ways with Rolando McClain. With a possible jail sentence looming there is already reason to believe the Raiders will be Rolando-less at some point be it either jail time or a league mandated suspension. But beyond that there is now some evidence of Dennis Allen slowly phasing McClain out of Oakland.

During the bye week Allen and his staff took a good look at the current roster to sort things out in order to improve on the awful showing during the first month of the season. Though they didn’t win there was plenty of improvement across the board during Oakland’s heartbreaking loss in Atlanta.

One such area in which the Raiders improved mightily was getting the Falcons off the field on third down. A big part of that was due to the presence of Miles Burris in Oakland’s nickel package. That would be the same rookie that worked his way into the starting lineup once Aaron Curry was out of action and now threatens to take even more reps from McClain.

Coming out of Alabama the book on McClain was always that he was much better against the run than he was defending the pass. Not much has changed in that department after nearly two and a half years into his pro career. Even more concerning is that McClain hasn’t at all been as advertised in regards to his prowess defending the run. In fact he seems to be playing the worst ball of his career under the new Raiders regime.

With Curry set to rejoin the team in practice this week and Burris poised to pilfer even more reps we could be looking at the end of McClain’s days in the East Bay. Raider Nation wasn’t too impressed with McClain’s jogging act during the lopsided loss in Denver. Now it would appear the coaching staff is prepared to play McClain less and less in hopes of getting more production out of a disappointing yet hopefully improving defense.

While Burris is only getting McClain’s snaps in nickel packages it feels like it’s only a matter of time until Burris or even Curry get a shot at starting in the middle thus removing McClain from the field on all downs.

[Action]

McClain is actually a really good player when he's playing at full potential. I'd chalk his under performance due to his mind not being fully there, not that he's not a good football player... he's shown it.

He'd be an upgrade to anything we have right now... but at the same time he'd be best in a 2-gapping 3-4 defense.

[KevinJames]

Originally Posted by Action

McClain is actually a really good player when he's playing at full potential. I'd chalk his under performance due to his mind not being fully there, not that he's not a good football player... he's shown it.

He'd be an upgrade to anything we have right now.

I don't know Raiders fans hate him I got this from a sports forum on another site. They actually said they would rather have Joe Mays. I watched him in the game against us he was dogging on plays and was in the wrong places a lot.

We know hes not very smart already (see picture).

[Action]

Originally Posted by KevinJames

I don't know Raiders fans hate him I got this from a sports forum on another site. They actually said they would rather have Joe Mays.

We know hes not very smart already (see picture).

It's odd, because he had such a high football IQ coming out of college. I saw him play and he had elite football instinct... always getting his teammates in the right position.

He has been playing poorly this season but from what I remember he was good the past 2 years.

I'm almost positive his poor play is due to lack of effort and his mind just not being there. I mean when you wear that black and silver, you'd probably think about ordering some zoloft or prozac.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if we traded Joe Mays for him.

[broncosteven]

Originally Posted by Action

It's odd, because he had such a high football IQ coming out of college. I saw him play and he had elite football instinct... always getting his teammates in the right position.

He has been playing poorly this season but from what I remember he was good the past 2 years.

I'm almost positive his poor play is due to lack of effort and his mind just not being there. I mean when you wear that black and silver, you'd probably think about ordering some zoloft or prozac.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if we traded Joe Mays for him.

Raiders can keep their thug trash

[TheReverend]

I think the variation in snaps is more reflective of how much more 11 personnel we play over Atlanta...

[gyldenlove]

I really liked him coming out of Alabama, but there must be too much mercury in the water down there in Oakland, because so many talented people go there and start playing like crap.

[razorwire77]

Was a big fan of his in college. Truly dominating player who seemed to be the complete package. I still think if you got him out of that Oakland cesspool he could perform at a high level.

[Tombstone RJ]

The bad news is it looks like Burris may be a good draft pick for the faiders.

[DBroncos4life]

I heard they might be shopping McFadden as well.

[Doggcow]

Originally Posted by DBroncos4life

I heard they might be shopping McFadden as well.

Bowe wants out of KC. Add McFadden and we could become the Voltron of the AFC west.

[kdissette]

Originally Posted by Doggcow

Bowe wants out of KC. Add McFadden and we could become the Voltron of the AFC west.

i highly doubt they would trade such high value players inside the division....but getting those people shipped to the nfc would be nice....that way we can smoke all our division games for the nxt few years at least.

[TheChamp24]

Wasn't McClain thought of as only a 2 down LB coming out? Maybe it was some other highly touted LB, but I could've sworn it was McClain and people thought it would lower his draft stock.

[gyldenlove]

Originally Posted by TheChamp24

Wasn't McClain thought of as only a 2 down LB coming out? Maybe it was some other highly touted LB, but I could've sworn it was McClain and people thought it would lower his draft stock.

I don't remember that being a knock on him, he was very athletic and had good instincts. I remember there was a lot of debate about him vs. Spikes, but that faded away when Spikes turned out to be slow and fat.

[Beantown Bronco]

Having a potential jail sentence looming over one's head would be a distraction to anyone, I would imagine.

[manchambo]

At what point do we stop saying the raiders and chiefs are drafting busts and start saying they're ruining players. How many can't miss players have to turn into **** before its the teams not the players?

[WolfpackGuy]

"He's not a repeat mistake offender," Allen said.

Too bad you can't say that about any of their fans.