The Raiders continue to be depleted by injury. Due to the consistent shortage of able bodies to put on the field, they continue to work out players to try and replenish their ailing team. Today they worked out five players—four cornerbacks and a linebacker—to find out who may be out there to help.
The cornerbacks are Bryan McCann, Jamar Wall, David Pender, and Mikail Baker. The latter three have little or no NFL experience making all of them eligible for the practice squad.
McCann, if signed, would be to the active roster. He has played eleven games in the NFL with the Cowboys and Ravens. He has never started a game in the NFL at corner. His game experience consists mostly as a return specialist. Last season, his rookie season, he returned a punt for a touchdown.
McCann could be seen as a return specialist in Oakland to replace the injured Jacoby Ford who sprained his foot early in the game last Thursday against the Chargers.
As for the others, Jamar Wall was a sixth round pick out of Texas Tech by the Cowboys in 2010 but didn’t make the team. He was claimed off waivers by the Texans and played one game for them. He also played in one game for the Eagles and was last on the Eagles practice squad.
David Pender went undrafted out of Purdue in 2010. He was in Eagles camp in 2010 as well as the Ravens practice squad. He played in three games late in 2010 for the Colts and Bengals.
The Rams selected Mikail Baker in the seventh round in the 2011 draft out of Baylor. He has been on the waived/injured list all this season.
Former starter Chris Johnson has been out with injury since the third week of the season and there is no sign that he will return any time soon. He was replaced by rookie Demarcus Van Dyke who also went down with an injury against the Broncos in week 9 causing him to miss the game against the Chargers last Thursday. Chimdi Chekwa has not played for several weeks as well.
The team was desperate for cornerback help last week so they signed veteran free agent Lito Sheppard. Sheppard played well enough for the team to feel comfortable having him as a starter. Chekwa is expected to be healthy enough to return to the lineup next week in Minnesota. But with most teams carrying five corners at any given time, it is very possible that one of these corners gets signed in the next day or so.
There is even the possibility that more than one of these corners is signed, with one heading to the practice squad.
There was supposedly one additional player who was spotted working out but the identity of that player was not discovered.
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