Noah K. Murray / Associated Press
New York Jets’ Javelin Guidry, left, forces a fumble by Las Vegas Raiders’ Henry Ruggs III during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2020, in East Rutherford, N.J. The New York Jets recovered the fumble.
Thursday, Dec. 31, 2020 | 2 a.m.
When the Raiders selected Henry Ruggs with the 11th overall pick in last year’s draft, making him the first wide receiver off the board, it came with the implication that the team was prepared to go out of its way to work Ruggs into the offense in order to get top production out of him.
Ruggs is fast — maybe the fastest offensive player in the whole league — but a refined receiver he is not. The Raiders knew that when they chose him, and yet there has been little creativity in Ruggs’ usage in 2020, as Las Vegas has mostly targeted him behind the line of scrimmage or on deep go routes. The results have been underwhelming: 23 catches on 40 targets, 414 yards and two touchdowns.
Now, with the team eliminated from postseason contention, one of the goals in this week’s meaningless finale at Denver should be to deploy Ruggs in a way that efforts to bridge the obvious, season-long disconnect between Jon Gruden’s offensive scheme and Ruggs’ skill set.
Ruggs had no impact in Week 16, as he carried the ball once on an end-around and was targeted just twice in the passing game. One target was on a deep route down the middle into double coverage, which had very little chance of being completed. The other was a perfect example of how not to use Ruggs.
On this fourth-quarter play, the Raiders lined up Ruggs out wide (top of the screen) against Dolphins cornerback Xavien Howard, the NFL leader in interceptions and a top contender for Defensive Player of the Year. Ruggs ran a 15-yard square-in route, and as you can see, his break is not exactly sharp or explosive.
Howard had no problem shadowing Ruggs all the way and easily batted down the pass, almost resulting in an interception:
Sticking Ruggs out on an island and asking him to run conventional routes against top cornerbacks is not putting him in a position to succeed.
If the Raiders wanted a guy to run deep routes and screens, they should have drafted CeeDee Lamb. If they wanted a traditional route runner, they should have drafted Jerry Jeudy. Ruggs is not a receiver you can just send down the sideline for bombs, and he’s not going to lose defenders on a pivot route. He’s not a particularly elusive runner with the ball in his hands, either. What he is, is faster in space than just about anyone, capable of creating huge amounts of space with his straight-line burst, but the Raiders have not been able to scheme him into open areas all season.
It’s too early to give up on Ruggs, obviously. If the team wants the maximum return on its investment and get the big-play version of Ruggs who scored touchdowns on 25.0 percent of his touches in college, the offense has to be designed to utilize him in a more imaginative way.
Offensive coordinator Greg Olson and head coach Gruden need to huddle at some point in the offseason and study how freak-speed receivers are used by other teams in today’s NFL, and they need to incorporate those concepts into their own offense.
It doesn’t sound like Gruden is necessarily excited about having to do that, however. On Monday he implied it will be up to Ruggs to scratch and claw out a bigger role in the offense as a more conventional receiver.
“Right now, just so we’re all on the same page, we’re targeting [Darren] Waller,” Gruden said. “We’re doing a pretty good job of that. We’re targeting Nelson Agholor because those are our top two guys. And we’re targeting Josh Jacobs. Ruggs has got to practice, stay with us longer and do more with his targets. When he does, he’ll see the ball more.”
That’s not exactly encouraging. If the coaches think it’s entirely on Ruggs to do more with the kind of targets he’s getting now — targets that haven’t played to his strengths — then his sophomore season is going to look a lot like his underwhelming rookie campaign.
The Raiders have a long offseason to think it over and reconsider how they want to use their potential playmaker.
Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.
