Barber: Raiders’ shuffled defense a losing hand

OAKLAND

This is a short week for the Bay Area’s NFL teams, with the Raiders and 49ers facing off in the Dog Bowl this Thursday night. That puts the Raiders at a big disadvantage. Is three days enough to tune up the big wheel that they spin to pick their defensive starters? That sucker probably requires a lot of WD-40.

When your team is 1-5, as the Raiders were before taking on the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, you can expect some personnel changes. They can be dramatic, as when the Raiders traded bright (if underproductive) young wide receiver Amari Cooper to Dallas last week. And they can be more subtle.

Sometime over the weekend, head coach Jon Gruden or defensive coordinator Paul Guenther spun that wheel, and it landed on some surprising names.

Cornerback Gareon Conley, who had been bounced from the starting lineup, was back in it. So was safety Erik Harris, making his first start of the season. And other guys saw significant action for the first time in 2018, including safety Karl Joseph, cornerback Nick Nelson, and linebackers Kyle Wilber and Jason Cabinda. Two of those guys, Nelson and Cabinda, made their debuts for the Raiders. Cabinda was on the Oakland practice squad before Oct. 16.

The pattern is pretty clear. Gruden and Guenther wanted to inject some youth into the mix. Most of those guys are first-, second- or third-year players. Meanwhile, two of Guenther’s 2018 stalwarts, safety Reggie Nelson and cornerback Rashaan Melvin, weren’t even active for the game. They were what we refer to as “healthy scratches,” a designation usually reserved for young men who have yet to prove they are NFL-caliber or players who have bumbled their way into the doghouse.

Melvin didn’t endear himself to Gruden when he tweeted out some complaints following a miserable loss to Seattle on Oct. 14, but I don’t know that it had much bearing on his DNP against the Colts. Reggie Nelson, by all accounts, is one of Guenther’s favorites.

The real problem for Melvin and Nelson is that their elder status. Melvin is 29. Nelson is 35. Experience seemed to be the No. 1 quality a player could bring to the job when the Raiders were signing free agents this offseason. They began the season with the oldest roster in the NFL. That didn’t work, so now they are reversing themselves and trying to go young.

Again, when you’re 1-5 - now 1-6 after a frustrating 42-28 loss to Indianapolis - everything is on the table.

“This is pro football,” Gruden said after the game. “I mean, you can only have 53 guys, that’s it. You might be able to shuffle it around a little bit, which we did today, because of injuries to the offensive line. We’re going to continue to play the best people that deserve a chance to play and that we feel can give us a chance to win. We’re not trying to come out here and evaluate players like some audition.”

But doesn’t it feel like a big audition right now? Conley did all right in his early-season starts, then got buried on the bench. Melvin had some good moments, too, but found himself in street clothes Sunday. Everybody is getting a crack at it now.

As Conley said: “I don’t ever know what’s going on. I just control what I can control.”

“It’s up to the coaches,” Joseph said. “That’s not our decision to make. Just whoever’s up gotta be ready to come play. … One thing that Coach Guenther talks about every week is the standard doesn’t change, it doesn’t matter who’s out there, we just gotta be ready to play.”

That seems right. Unfortunately, the standard hasn’t been very high in 2018. The Raiders defense came into the Indy game ranked 26th in yards allowed, 29th in points, 27th in rushing yards per attempt and 32nd, dead last, in passing yards per attempt. Those rankings did not improve Sunday as Andrew Luck and the Colts shredded Guenther’s crew for 461 yards. The Raiders did not sack Luck, intercept a pass or cause a fumble. Clearly, the injection of new blood did not result in an injection of ability to make big plays.

It’s too bad, because Gruden’s offense turned a corner Sunday. The Raiders gained 347 total yards despite watching the Colts hold the ball for most of the afternoon, and quarterback Derek Carr had his best game in more than month. It was all for naught, because Guenther’s defense couldn’t get Indianapolis off the field.

You can’t fault a coaching staff for shaking things up weren’t all is not going well, but again we’re left with the feeling that the Raiders are moving pieces around blindly, desperately thrashing about until they hit on something that works. And if these are auditions, what exactly are the players auditioning for? A chance to start next week? For the 2019 roster or the 2020 debut in Las Vegas? For some unnamed team that might be willing to trade for them?

There didn’t seem to be any rancor among the players Sunday. They understand better than we do the cutthroat nature of their business. In fact, cornerback Darryl Worley sounded downright supportive.

“You have to see what we have,” Worley said. “We have 53 guys on the roster for a reason. It’s gonna take every man. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. So I felt like the new faces that were out there, people did the best of their abilities.”

I saw Rashaan Melvin and Reggie Nelson walk through the tunnel and onto the field with the Raiders’ active defensive backs before the game, and they looked pretty relaxed. I didn’t get a chance to ask them about their healthy scratching afterward, because they had ducked out of the locker room early. It helps when you don’t have to shower.

This juggling of playing time is one more thing with the potential to fray the morale of this locker room. The Raiders’ players already have endured the banishment of Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper, two of the most popular guys on the team, and lingering rumors that others might be traded - including quarterback Derek Carr.

Joseph’s name has popped up in some of those rumors. He was a first-round draft pick in 2016, but until Sunday he appeared to be another casualty of Gruden’s housecleaning.

Asked if he had seen any of the reports, Joseph said, “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.”

On finally getting onto the field, Joseph noted, “I feel like it’s been forever. It felt good to be out there. But the most important thing is the win, and we didn’t do that.”

No, they didn’t. But hey, spin that wheel again and maybe they’ll find 11 players who can stop the 49ers offense.

You can reach columnist Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.