For the first time in about a week the entire team was healthy for practice. Although not everyone practiced. Darrius Heyward-Bey was held out but it was just to give him a rest day according to Tom Cable. Louis Murphy, Chaz Schilens and Marcel Reece were all back from their injuries although Schilens and Reece were on limited duty.
The first odd sight was Tom Cable running routes. At first it looked like he was filling in for DHB but we found out later it was a bit more comical than that.
“Tyvon [Branch] was trying to convince me that he needs to come to offense and throw a reverse pass. You guys saw it. He can’t throw. That’s really all that was.”
Well I guess that settles that then. Nothing like a hands on coach. He could have just grabbed a young receiver or something but he chose instead to take care of it himself. In case you were wondering, he dropped the first pass and caught the second one.
Al Davis was back in attendance. He seems to be around quite a bit this year. Perhaps it is a combination of improved health and optimism about the team that is being put on the field. Although I would think that watching a better team would make him feel a whole heck of a lot better all by itself.
Two-hand touch football
A question I got the other day was whether the Raiders were ever going to get to a point in this year’s camp practices where the defense is tackling to the ground as opposed to this ‘contact and release’ concept. To which my answer was simply that Cable has never allowed tackling to the ground. Here is exactly what his response was to the question when posed today:
“I wouldn’t say that we’re not going to [allow tackling to the ground]. I think we’ll be smart about it. We do have some light contact work. You’ll see more of it probably than we’ve done in the past.”
Take that for what it’s worth.
Rock redemption
Rock Cartwright came out of the gates today looking like he wanted to redeem himself after a poor performance yesterday. He started things off by beating rookie linebacker Travis Goethel up the middle. Then he got the better of Quentin Groves as well. He followed that up with catching a short pass right in front of Goethel. He quickly showed that yesterday’s follies were not commonplace for him.
Although in his competition with Michael Bennett, he may not have gained much ground because Bennett continues to impress every practice. He gets around the edge well and he has good hands catching passes out of the backfield. I would say the Raiders will have a difficult decision on who to cut once the season rolls around.
Not ex-Zach-tly
Zach Miller had a rare bad day. He shocked onlookers when he had his first dropped pass. And it was without anyone defending. This prompted the “it was bound to happen eventually” sentiment. Then he dropped another one later in practice which seems not far off of lightening striking the same spot twice. And if you thought it couldn’t happen a third time, then you are wrong, because it did. That’s right, he had a third drop on the day. He must have had something on his mind. Or something in his eye, who knows. Or maybe he is just used to the quarterback throwing at his ankles by this point and he is in shock. Whatever it is, I am sure he is fine.
And the first post contact drill scuffle goes to….
Lamarr Houston and Brandon Myers(applause). Gentleman, please come up and accept your prizes. And those of you out there who had these two in your office pool, you can collect now. I had Lamarr Houston right atop my list of “most likely scufflers” and he did not disappoint. But I don’t get any office pool winnings or trophies, just a strained tricep patting myself on the back.
For Houston, fighting in practice is a bit too common for me to get all high and mighty about predicting it. But for Myers, it is considerably more rare. But I suppose everyone has their breaking point. The fight happend after Houston tackled Myers and threw him to the ground hard enough to send Myers helmet flying. But afterward Myers was playing the incident pretty close to the vest.
“[Lamarr] is just coming here trying to prove himself,” Myers said. “You expect that from a young guy. I’m young myself, too. The last person you’d expect [in a fight] would be me. It just happened. You don’t like to see those things but sometimes maybe they’ll get the offense and defense going and maybe it’s a good thing. It all happened so fast I don’t even know what happened. I’ll stick with that story.”
Fullback anyone? Anyone? Seriously, anyone.
Despite the Raiders carrying four fullbacks on the roster, it seems like there just is not enough for coach Cable’s liking. Well, actually the team was suddenly thin at the position because Luke Lawton woke up with a headache and was held out of practice for concussion testing, Marcel Reece was on limited duty with his foot injury, and Monase Tonga had a slight knee strain. None are serious injuries but it kept them all out of contact drills. Chane Moline was the only guy left and he can’t carry the load alone.
So it was a free for all of testing out guys at fullback. Tight end Brandon Myers was put in there first to see his versatility. But the more intriguing addition was 275 pound defensive end Alex Daniels. Daniels was signed as an undrafted free agent out of Cincinnati and has been playing pretty well among a somewhat crowded DE group.
“Cable just came to me like a man and said, ‘Alex, your reps is cut off from defense so let’s find something for you to do because we like you, you’re a good kid’, and I just want to fill my niche on the team. He said, ‘well, you can help me out at fullback, can you block?’ I said, I’ll do whatever it takes. He said, ‘can you catch?’ I said, I’ll do whatever it takes… whatever I can do to help the team win, that’s what I’m going to do, if I gotta play fullback, if I gotta play center, if I gotta go get the water, then I’m going to do it.
“I started at tailback for the University of Minnesota. I was big ten player of the week a couple of times, I think… So going into my sophomore season, our running back became academically ineligible, he played here last year, Gary Russell, he was our running back that year, and coach Mason came up to me and said Alex, can you play running back, I said, I’ll give it a shot, and the shot became, oh, he was good at it, and I became good at it. My first game I had three touchdowns and 150 yards rushing.
“I played running back before, but now I’m going to be a blocking back, and if I’ve got to block for McFadden I’m going to block for McFadden. If I’ve got to block for Bush, I’ve got block for Bush. If I’ve got to block for President Obama, if it’s going to help the Raiders win, then that’s what I’ve got to do because I feel like this is the year where we have all the pieces to be a successful football team.”
Gotta love that attitude. Every team needs 53 guys who think like that.
Mixing it up on 3rd and long
John Marshall and Tom Cable were not lying when they said they were going to mix in some different schemes on defense. And that idea becomes fairly obvious when the team lines up in 3rd and long. Tommy Kelly moves to nose tackle while Richard Seymour moves into the the 3 tech defensive tackle position. The wildcard is Mike Mitchell who enters the game as a linebacker. Jerome Boyd and rookie Stevie Brown can also fill this role as both played some linebacker in college as well as safety. These guys’ versatility offer the team valuable flexibility. Add in Trevor Scott, Kamerion Wimbley and Quentin Groves who all play linebacker and defensive end and you have six guys who play like twelve. Oh and of course Richard Seymour and Lamarr Houston who can both play DE and DT. Cable is very pleased with the options he has to work with.
“The pass rush that it’s seeing now is so much of an upgrade over what we had last year,” he said without hesitation. “You put Kamerion and Trevor on the outside and you have Tommy and Richard on the inside. We definitely upgraded in that department, in terms of the pass rush on 3rd down. They will both play the three [technique] a little bit, but you will see Tommy more playing on the nose. He is a little more comfortable there than Richard is. Depending on the formation you’re in, and if you move or shift to it, you may start with Tommy on the nose and end with Richard on the nose. It gives us an ability to be multiple in there.”
So let’s make it 8 guys worth 16. But don’t tell them that or they will want to be paid twice as much.
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