Raiders’ run defense rises to challenge against Dolphins

The Raiders didn’t allow massive rushing totals in their first two preseason games, but there were a few plays that suggested the run defense could be an area of concern.

The defensive line should enjoy the film session much more this week after a better effort in Saturday’s 15-13 road win over the Miami Dolphins.

Miami coach Mike McDaniel’s noted running game mustered only 37 yards on 18 carries. That included free-agent signee Chase Edmonds being limited to 3 yards on three attempts with several starters on the field for the Dolphins.

“We saw some progress,” Raiders coach Josh McDaniels said Sunday. “For the most part, I thought we were trying hard to do some things better in the run defense. Our fits, our tackling, I thought we had some good tackles and some things we could have done better. But we’ve tried to identify what it is we want to fix and improve on each week … and I thought a few of those things showed up in the game.”

It helped the cause that the Raiders are getting healthier up front. Defensive tackles Bilal Nichols and Johnathan Hankins returned from the PUP list last week. Nichols didn’t play Saturday, but his presence in practice has helped the depth. Hankins made two nice plays in his return.

“It was good to see those guys back last week,” McDaniels said. “Certainly we now have more depth than what we’ve been practicing with. Any time you add players back, in this case two defensive linemen we have some hopes for, it kind of reallocates the repetitions. It reslots everyone into a role that maybe fits them perfectly or better than what we were doing before.”

Kendal Vickers had stepped up as a veteran presence in the absence of Nichols and Hankins, but McDaniels said their return has allowed him to take reps at defensive end to bolster depth at a position at which the team has had injuries. It also puts him in a role in which he can better utilize his skill set and present matchup problems.

“We feel like we have some more depth up front and some more combinations,” McDaniels said. “It allows us to make some moves and decisions that maybe we didn’t have the flexibility to make earlier, which affects and impacts the entire defense.”

The group was counted on to help preserve a win after the Raiders took the lead with 4:40 to play on a Daniel Carlson field goal. Miami moved the ball a bit, but the defense forced a 46-yard field-goal attempt that missed.

The offense then picked up a first down on a 36-yard run by rookie Brittain Brown to run out the clock and move the Raiders to 3-0 in the preseason with one game remaining — against McDaniels’ former team, the New England Patriots, on Friday at Allegiant Stadium.

Those games won’t be remembered when the regular season starts, but McDaniels said the preseason is far from meaningless.

“We all play this game to win,” he said. “So we don’t treat these games any different than we would treat a regular-season game in terms of our effort to achieve the goal. We may not use everything we would use in a regular-season game to ultimately win the game relative to scheme and those types of things, but within the game plan we’ve put together, which is usually fairly basic, we’re trying to win.”

The preseason games provide the team scenarios to practice situational football. McDaniels particularly noted how his team managed the Miami game down the stretch. The offense drove to take the lead, the defense forced a field-goal attempt that missed and the offense got the first down it needed to drain the clock.

“All the situational things that come up in a game, whether it’s preseason or regular season, are meaningful,” McDaniels said. “Our team was into what the situations were and what we’re trying to get done.”

The Raiders will have chances to work on game situations in a more managed environment this week in two joint practices with the Patriots.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.