Oakland Raiders

The Oakland Raiders completed the first practice of their fourth day of training camp, and once again these practices were about going through the motions, rather than full contact drills. Here is Tom Cable's comments to the assembled media:

Apparently the plan is to repeat the sequence of practices starting next week, except with pads on and played to completion:

When we get to Monday, we'll actually start over, then we'll get ready to play.

Coach Cable also expects to have a better idea of the make-up of the offensive line by the end of next week:

I would say sometime next weekend, I want to have a pretty good idea about where we're at. To say that I'm set anywhere right now, there may be a couple of spots, but really nowhere in general. But let's get through a...you know, a week from tomorrow. I'll have a pretty good idea, I bet.

Cable designed this type of practice so that it could be run on two practice fields simultaneously, thus allowing players further down the depth chart to be able to get the practice reps in:

The reason it's designed this way is that your second or third-team guys, and young guys, get less rep's once you really start to work it as a team. So, they're always playing catch-up. Every year, you hear stories about 'the sooner they can learn' or 'they couldn't quite get it, that's probably why he didn't make the team' or whatever that is. So, I wanted to create an environment where those guys could go on Monday and if they're now getting 14 rep's in a period and they only get six, that they damn sure know exactly what to do on all six. And we can see them at their best. We can give them a fair evaluation.

Cable praised the running back corps, and he expects the depth of that position to give the Raiders many more options on offense:

We've got lot's of talent, but you see how we're using all three of those guys. They're not all just standing in the backfield, they're all over the place. So, we'll continue to do that by design. They each kind of have their own little package and their own strengths, if you will, and so I want to really get that installed and work at it these next few weeks.

You know I think there's a whole package of [The Wildcat] you can do. Right now what I want to do is just get our base installation in and then the situations taught, which is where we're at right now, and then from there, that's a down the road. That's kinda' extra.

Cable says that he has a good communication with quarterback JaMarcus Russell, and that he can see progress from Russell as far as learing the game:

If you remember last year I mentioned where I’d meet with him on Wednesdays after practice, so it’s really just a continuation of that. Certainly at camp and all this time we have together allows us to even expand on that more. It is important because I’ll tell him, like today in red zone, ‘This is what I’m thinking. Tell me what you saw there. This is where I would have went with it. Yeah we’re on the same page.’ That’s nice to hear us saying the same thing now.

[Calling his audibles] was the next phase. We keep talking about him taking steps and all that, and the next phase was for him to take care of his team in those pressure situations or getting us in the right play. He’s had one yesterday and one today where I probably would have went somewhere different but he went to the right place, whether it was a protection or a run, or maybe a better run he could have gone to or a better route he called, but yes he’s managing that much better. I feel good about it because now at least I know if we get out there in a situation he’s going to get us in the right play.



I think [he has improved his hot reads by] a tremendous amount. You saw the first two days, there was a blitz every practice, so that was by design to get him back into that. So when we pick up again on Monday, and it’s obviously faster tempo and speed of play is at a high level, I want to see it then. But I think based on where we’re at right now, he’s done fine. Showed that in OTAs. So pick it up here and just keep getting better, keep getting better.