Slot Machines: Getting creative at inside wide receiver

Las Vegas Raiders should experiment, rotate at slot receiver

Over the course of offseason team activities (OTAs) and mandatory minicamp, the Las Vegas Raiders moved their wide receivers around to see what the various alignments, fits, and personnel groupings to get insight on production and synergy.

This, of course, is a byproduct of new head coach Pete Carroll and his coaching staff working with the roster they built alongside general manager John Spytek.

“Well, we learned a lot. The whole purpose here is to figure them out, figure guys out; it’s a relationship that we that we’re building on, that we need to know who we’re teaching and how they operate, how they function and all that,” Carroll said on the last day of Raiders mandatory minicamp last Thursday. “So, the whole time has been about information gathering. You would think it’s all on the football field, but it’s way more than that, and we’ve gone to great depths trying to get to understand our guys, what’s important to them, what are their goals and their principles, and how they approach stuff so that we can better teach them and reach them. So, I wouldn’t even know where to start. There’s a million things.”

Thus expect the practice of moving receivers around at the different spots — X and Z (outside spots) and the slot — to continue well into training camp in mid-July and preseason games. Carroll and his coaching staff have plenty to learn about the players.

That said, the Silver & Black would be wise to continue that practice when contests start counting come the regular season.

Why a fluid rotation of personnel groupings?

Two reasons:

1. Maximize offensive output/potential.
2. Keep the opposing defenses on their toes.

According to the Athletics’ Tashan Reed and ESPN’s Ryan McFadden, the Raiders strategically placed both Jakobi Meyers and rookie Jack Bech (second-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft) inside in the slot and outside on the perimeter. Our Matt Holder explored Meyers’ effectiveness in the slot versus the boundary and his findings are intriguing.

Shuttling Meyers and Bech inside did allow Las Vegas to get a look at Tre Tucker and rookie Dont’e Thornton Jr. (fourth-round pick in April’s draft) as outside options. Both are fleet-footed wideouts with Thornton providing size (6-foot-5) to go along with his 4.30-flat speed.

“… I think Dont’e is unique in terms of he’s just a hair under 6-5 and he ran 4.3. There’s not a lot of humans on this planet that do that,” Raiders offensive coordinator Chip Kelly said of the rookie wide receiver after one of team’s OTAs in late May. “And I think if you had a draw up an outside receiver, you would pick that type of body type, someone that’s got length, someone that’s got a huge catch radius, but also has speed. Sometimes you can get a big guy like that, but he can’t really run, so they can stay with him. So, you add that speed element to him, his ability to sink his hips, his ability to get in and out of cuts.”

Alignment versatility in the wide receiver group allows Kelly — known for devising and deploying creative offensive attacks — to maximize output and create advantageous matchups for the Raiders offense. It also allows Las Vegas the ability to redundancy if injuries leave it without a wide receiver.

Quarterback Geno Smith — the likely starter — is accurate and has the arm strength to drive the ball deep or put it on a rope and thread it into tight areas. And having a receiver group that can line up at multiple spots ensures Las Vegas’ offense isn’t predictable or cookie cutter.

This isn’t relegated to just wide receivers in particular.

Mixing tight end Brock Bowers — the team’s de facto top pass catcher (although Meyers is the No. 1 wide receiver) — at both traditional slot and outside wide receiver spots adds more headaches and wrinkles for opposing defenses and the Raiders offense, alike. In his sensational rookie season Bowers was moved across the formation and lined up in traditional wide receiver spots along with his standard tight end workload. And it’ll be intriguing to see how Kelly deploys the talented tight end who runs routes, catches the ball, and has speed like a wide receiver.

Yet, in order for the offense to flow and be productive, Smith will need to be protected and kept upright by the Raiders offensive line. And then the receiving options need to get open.

But one thing is clear when Las Vegas regroups for training camp next month: Com-Pete. That’s a mantra Carroll instilled during the Raiders’ session thus far and it isn’t going to change. Work for snaps. And if the team has options on the free agent market to get better, then so be it.

““You’re either competing or you’re not. We ain’t letting up now,” Carroll noted. “You saw that we just signed a guy, or got a guy committed yesterday, and we’re going to keep working it. There’s no time to turn away from having a chance to get a little bit better. So, we’ll be on it.”