Oakland Raiders

Camp Cable completed its tenth day with a single practice this afternoon, and the Raiders had a less than stellar practice. Darrius Heyward-Bey had some drop problems again. Chaz Schilens is still excelling. Jon Alston didn't get in a fight for a change. William Joseph had a big day and the Raiders are getting ready for the Raider Nation Celebration this afternoon.

* Coach Tom Cable described it as hitting the 'camp wall,' "Not really sharp today you can tell we are hitting that camp wall if you will we need to kind of push through that. I talked to them about it afterwards and its a lot like how you handle a bad half. How you regroup kind of answers how you are going, how you are developing as a football team. Disappointed that we could not really push through this afternoon, but at the same time a lot of good work in terms of situations that we did."

* Cable praised JaMarcus Russell for spreading the ball around more, saying that would only help Zach Miller, "It is a product of having more talent on the football team and having more options to throw the football to. Obviously the receiving corps continues to get better and improve and that is going to do nothing but get better and enhance Zach and his play, as I have talked about before, so I think it is a product of everybody around him."

* Defensive coordinator John Marshall said that since being hired he had watched tape of Raiders defense from every game for the last two years multiple times. He offered this as the solution to the Raiders woes against the run,"We need to improve the run game. That has everything to do with technique, and it has a whole lot to do with attitude and tackling. Those are the areas, disengaging blockers, fundamentals … better fundamentals."

* Speaking of the run game, Justin Fargas made the bold prediction that the Oakland Raiders could have THREE 1,000 yard rushers on their team. That is a feat that has never been accomplished in the history of the NFL. "We plan on being a top running team. We plan on making the playoffs and having an extended season. There’s going to be plenty of carries and plenty of yards out there for each of us. I feel like we can all have great seasons and all complement each other well. Three 1,000-yard backs isn’t out of the question.”

* Bush agreed with Fargas's assessment, "Yeah, with the fullbacks that we have, we’re going to rock things with Lorenzo and Big O. He’s back to being 100 percent, as you see. He’s dropping his pads and being that hammer that he was (in 2007), that guy that catches out of the backfield. It’s a good thing. The zone scheme is made to have at least two 1,000-yard backs. It’s possible.”

* My prediction, if each of the Raiders three headed monster has 1,000 yard seasons, the Raiders will be a Super Bowl contender.








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