A New Aspect Continues to Unfold for the Raiders' Offense

It has been evident in training camp that one of the aspects of the new-look Raiders offense is the addition of long passes down the field. In training camp and their joint practice against the San Francisco 49ers, the Raiders routinely throw the ball downfield.

Following training camp, Smith was not shy about his desire to make the Raiders' offense one that values gaining yards in chunks. This has been something the Raiders' offense has lacked for at least the past two seasons.

If Smith and the Raiders' offense can successfully execute big plays down the field, it would be a game-changer for Las Vegas.

Smith's Rare Traits

"I mean, yeah, we want to strike. We want to be able to have a big-play offense, and we have the weapons to do so. But it's about, like you said, taking what the defense gives me, understanding situations. Every time isn't a chance to go for the long ball. There's situations in the game where you've got to just manage the game and check it down if you need to," Smith said.

"But when we can strike and we can put points on the board, no matter if it's a 10-play drive or a one-play drive, it's about getting points on the board, and I want to push the envelope as much as I can. If they want to come up and give us deep shots, we've got the guys that will run past them. So, we've just got to make the right reads, make the right plays, and when we play right, we're a really good team."

The Raiders struggled at times in the red zone last season, which is another area of focus for Smith and the Raiders. Las Vegas' offense has looked much-improved in the red zone in training camp.

"Man, it's great to score touchdowns, right? We want to score touchdowns. And I think obviously there's some things that we can improve on. There's a lot of things that we left out there, things that we have to get better at, but overall, man, I was very pleased with how we competed today. And I thought, again like you said man, we hit some long touchdowns, and we got some plays on their guys. We were all competing, and it felt really good to see that," Smith said.

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