Oakland Raiders news: Maurice Jones-Drew to have bigger role?

When the Oakland Raiders signed veteran running back Maurice Jones-Drew it seemed as if they expected him to handle the vast majority of their backfield duties.

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So far that hasn’t proven to be the case as MJD has been injured and looks to be a shell of his former self. Even when healthy Maurice Jones-Drew wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire and looked to be in a committee situation with Darren McFadden under previous head coach Dennis Allen.

However with Tony Sporano now the Oakland Raiders interim head coach, Maurice Jones-Drew is expected to have a larger role in the offense moving forward.

“I’d like Maurice to take a little bit greater role, maybe get some snaps off of Darren,” Sparano said. “If we could, keep them both fresh that way, but we also have got to be running the football and doing some things that way too.”

What type of role Sparano is talking about seems unknown. The head coach famously ran (and had success) with the Wildcat during his time coaching the Miami Dolphins and seemingly has pieces to work such an offense with the Raiders thanks to fellow running back Darren McFadden. However, Derek Carr and MJD would be a questionable fit in such.

Despite that the Raiders have used the Wildcat a few times this year and could be planning to incorporate it into their offense even more.

“We’ve been efficient every time we’ve lined up in it. It’s been good to us, but we’ve only run three snaps, and for different reasons, Maurice maybe not being out there at times,” the Oakland Raiders head coach stated. “We could see anything right now.”

Generally you’d question if such was a good move though at 0-4, you might as well try anything.

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