The Official 2012-13 Oakland Raiders Thread
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- Start date
Good to hear Aaron is back with the team.
Good news, cause we thin at linebacker.
Taiwan Jones back at practice.
Jacoby "Glass" Ford. Everytime he get hit he acts like he hurt.
Ford been
since his rookie year.
BayArea Breez
GOAT Defensive Raider
Oakland Raiders shift into regular-season mode for matchup with Detroit Lions - San Jose Mercury News
NAPA -- The Raiders began their regular-season routine Tuesday in preparation for what amounts to their most important dress rehearsal of the preseason.
Oakland hosts the Detroit Lions Saturday at O.co Coliseum, with the third game of the preseason typically being the closest thing approximating a regular-season routine.
Unlike Oakland's previous two games, a 3-0 loss to the Dallas Cowboys and a 31-27 defeat against Arizona, the Raiders will actually game-plan for an opponent for the first time and will play most starters into the third quarter.
In a departure from previous years, coach Dennis Allen took the extra step of instituting in-season media access, meaning reporters were restricted to the first half-hour of practice. During that time, the club goes through warm-ups and some drills, with the media being excused once they go to team sessions.
Every other season since 1996, practices were open all the way through training camp and practices closed once the team returned to its home facility in Alameda. The Raiders practice Wednesday and Thursday in Napa before breaking camp.
Players who were not present or did not appear to be practicing as the team sessions began included wide receivers Jacoby Ford (foot) and Denarius Moore (hamstring), running back Rashawn Jackson (hip), linebacker Aaron Curry (knees), center Stefen Wisniewski (calf), tackle Ed Wang (shoulder), tackle Zach Hurd (head), defensive tackle Richard Seymour (veteran's day off) and defensive tackle Jamie Cumbie (foot).
Players who were back at practice included safety Michael Huff (paternity leave), quarterback Matt Leinart (lacerated right index finger) and wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey (shoulder).
The Raiders must cut the roster to 65 players by 1 p.m. on Aug. 7, with the 53-man roster finalized on Aug. 31 by 6 p.m.
If the Lions vs Raven preseason game was any indication, Stafford to Megatron is gonna be another repeat nightmare from last season. Raiders need to tighten up and it will be good to see how the offense will be with DMAC going 3 quarters.
NAPA -- The Raiders began their regular-season routine Tuesday in preparation for what amounts to their most important dress rehearsal of the preseason.
Oakland hosts the Detroit Lions Saturday at O.co Coliseum, with the third game of the preseason typically being the closest thing approximating a regular-season routine.
Unlike Oakland's previous two games, a 3-0 loss to the Dallas Cowboys and a 31-27 defeat against Arizona, the Raiders will actually game-plan for an opponent for the first time and will play most starters into the third quarter.
In a departure from previous years, coach Dennis Allen took the extra step of instituting in-season media access, meaning reporters were restricted to the first half-hour of practice. During that time, the club goes through warm-ups and some drills, with the media being excused once they go to team sessions.
Every other season since 1996, practices were open all the way through training camp and practices closed once the team returned to its home facility in Alameda. The Raiders practice Wednesday and Thursday in Napa before breaking camp.
Players who were not present or did not appear to be practicing as the team sessions began included wide receivers Jacoby Ford (foot) and Denarius Moore (hamstring), running back Rashawn Jackson (hip), linebacker Aaron Curry (knees), center Stefen Wisniewski (calf), tackle Ed Wang (shoulder), tackle Zach Hurd (head), defensive tackle Richard Seymour (veteran's day off) and defensive tackle Jamie Cumbie (foot).
Players who were back at practice included safety Michael Huff (paternity leave), quarterback Matt Leinart (lacerated right index finger) and wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey (shoulder).
The Raiders must cut the roster to 65 players by 1 p.m. on Aug. 7, with the 53-man roster finalized on Aug. 31 by 6 p.m.
If the Lions vs Raven preseason game was any indication, Stafford to Megatron is gonna be another repeat nightmare from last season. Raiders need to tighten up and it will be good to see how the offense will be with DMAC going 3 quarters.
Hopefully we come to play.
Tarver Talks Training Camp
Transcript:
How do you feel about the progress of the defense?
Applying our rules, we’ve been doing pretty well. Learning how to work together, we’ve been doing pretty well. I liked that last game we got in stressful situations early because you want to see how we respond. Some of them we responded very well, some of them we gave up touchdowns. We need to hold those to field goals so we need to work on that area but it’s good to be put into those situations and have to keep having to go back out. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter where they get the ball. We don’t control where we get on the field on defense, we control whether we get off the field or not.
With the third preseason game, most coaches point to as the one ‘we sort of gameplan for and treat more as a preseason game’, how advantageous is it to have an offense like Detroit, which is one of the best in the league, and a team that really worked over a lot of these guys last year.
Yea, you know what’s good, is the order for us: You’ve got Dallas who can throw it and wants to run it downhill at you; you’ve got Arizona that shifts a little bit and still runs downhill at you and of course has a very good wide receiver; and you have Detroit that runs it more than most people think they do but it’s a little more spread out and they try to get matchups for their good players. Of course, we know the guy with the nickname who’s on the cover of ESPN The Magazine this week, but they have other players too and that quarterback gets it out. So it’s kind of a nice progression for us facing those three: two styles and then a little slightly different style with slightly different personnel groups so we can learn how to use our rules for all our different defenses.
Can you sense a real confidence and a swagger form some of these guys? They’ve been so outspoken about how much they love this scheme, particularly the safeties and the guys in the backfield about playing downfield and coming forward and a lot of the stuff they’re being asked to do. Can you sense their enthusiasm and everything that they’re putting forward?
What’s been good is that they’re going with our teaching process, which is this: we put it into categories and then they can see that even though the defense is slightly different, it’s still the same thing. That’s what gives the players confidence because they can do the same thing. Like the safeties, it might be a slightly different call or look different to the offense but in their world its the same. Then they see themsleves getting better and making more plays and its the same and it builds, and that’s where you build confidence. The other thing that’s happening is that these guys are learning how to work together and thats the key. It’s 11 men working together to stop the offense and we’re just the facilitators to that. That’s what breeds confidence and they’re on that track and hopefully we get some more situations to test our resolve this week and see how we do as a group, regardless of who the 11 on the field are.
When you hear a veteran like Richard Seymour, and some of the other veterans, Tommy Kelly, Michael Huff, agree that this can be a top-five defense, what’s your reaction to that?
Continue the process. It’s all about process, it really is. It’s about teaching progressions and process and putting everything together into categories so that we can progress to where we want to go. It’s great that they can see that because now they’re putting things together going ‘Oh, this looks like this. I see myself in this making plays’ but now we’ve got to do it and we’ve got to do it 11 guys together.
What’s top five to you? Most people agree that yardage can be deceiving. Other than points scored obviously, is it third down distance, what are the things you look at?
I’m glad you asked that. The number one thing with this and with defense is that you’ve got to control what you’re able to control. So last week we had the ball in our own zone, who cares? It’s not about where they start, it’s about what they finish with on the drive. So number one, of course is points allowed like you said, but points allowed is a team stat and that’s missed at times. Points allowed is attributed right to the defense but it’s a team stat. It’s a team game, that’s what’s great about it. How do you rank a top five defense? There’s a lot of ways, but the biggest one is getting the heck off the field and giving the ball back to Carson and the guys, okay? That’s the biggest one and that’s what we want to do. The other stats with that, that’s a result of controlling how we get off the field: third-down percentage, red zone touchdown percentage. Those are a couple that are good markers. The yards sometimes, I mean theres some games where they catch a couple of balls, tackle them and go to the next play. Now rushing yards is a big one because if they can run and pass on you at all times…
A lot of the guys think, a couple in particular, that this is already one of the better tackling teams they’ve had here in several years, yet there’s not a lot of tackling in practice, how do you accomplish that?
One thing is the emphasis on body position in tackling. This is a big deal to me anyway, because as a coach you want to help the players get better so you want to put them in positions number one where they’re not going to hurt themselves too. This is from teaching little kids to NFL players, you’ve got to teach them how to tackle. You’ve got to teach them to keep their hips down and their eyes up and their feet moving and the correct leverage and to know where their help is. We drill it, we drilled it at the beginning of practice today. We drill it, we emphasize it and in team periods we talk about, for example: if you and I are going to make a tackle and I’m on the outside of you, I’d say ‘outside, outside, outside.’ That lets those players that I’m on his outside. Those little things and knowing where your help is makes you a better tackling team, and then the body position. Knowing where your help is and your body position on contact are things we’ve emphasised since day one and you can do that without pads on.
You emphasise in the wrapping up part of course, in the game where Romo threw to Witten and Rolando hit him but he didn’t wrap up, did you take him and say ‘that was a good hit but you should have wrapped up’ or anything like that?
As he was coming off the field I said ‘that was a great job job on a bootleg like we’ve been working all camp, now wrap him up.’ That’s exactly what I told him.
Are there any position groups you’re going to be paying particularly close attention, especially with the backups this week, for some clarity?
You know what’s nice about Detroit is they’ve got the ability to change the tempo of the game on offense. They can put bigger guys on and run and take shots to the big receiver and their other guys who are fast or they can put three-wide receiver groups or flex Scheffler and different guys out and change the pace of the game. So I’m most interested in our process and how we handle those situation because we haven’t got a lot of that yet. That’s what I’m excited about Detroit for us, lets see what we can do. Player wise, group wise, i’m excited to watch them all. Hopefully Jack Crawford is back from injury, that would be one. He’d be good to see. Miles Burris continuing to progress. The d line continuing to work together. All those safeties being pieces of this defense, seeing who’s going to step up. Those are just a few I can think of. The young corners, seeing how the second, third, fourth, who’s ever in the game, those corners continue togel and see who’s going to compete to win, to help us.
How would you assess DeMarcus Van Dyke through the first two games?
DeMarcus, I would really like to see him play like he plays out here and just play with what we know he can do. He’s heard that from me this week, that’s what I’d like to see him do: play like he plays at practice because he plays pretty good at practice.
Back to the beginning of camp, Roland said ‘look, my personality isn’t to be a leader, I know they need me to be, I know that’s what a middle linebacker is’, where is he in that process?
That process, from working with Patrick Willis to the young men who became leaders at Stanford last year, to everybody that I’ve been around, it is a process. It’s constant communication after the drive. If we have an eight-play set in practice, hey come on over and lets talk about what went on, what did you do? It’s not as much one man. There’s a few unique ones like Mr Lewis and some of those guys, but for the most part in this league, it trades off who’s going to talk: Tommy, Michael Huff, Tyvon Branch, Ro, etc. It’s the 11 guys figuring out how to talk to each other so that’s what I’m trying to facilitate. If I see a conversation that may be headed in one way or another, hey, lets go over here, lets fix this here. But not while we’re on the field, when we get off the field. That’s our time to fix it. Just go to the next play when you’re on the field, that’s how you’ve got to fix things. Yes we’re working with Ro, he’s doing a great job so far and we’ll continue to do that, but it’s more than that. It’s guys working together, that’s what’s great about this game: 22 pieces move every play, and sometimes the officials move too, and they’ve got to analyze it and get the guy with the ball on the ground or take the ball away, and then go to the next play, so the leadership has to come outside in all the time.
Bartell was already recognized as a pretty solid tackling cornerback, but I don’t know the same could have been said about Shawntae Spencer. How much more comfortable is he than when he started in camp and how is his tackling?
Shawntae has really improved. Some of it is the drills and some of it is himself, his dedication to it. He made some nice tackles last week on the sideline and early in drives when he was in. He’s improved. I’m happy with where he is and where Ron is. Again, its’ the same thing, we emphasize a lot here and it comes from Coach Allen to us, to defensive coaches, where’s your help? If you know where your help is you can take a shot form the correct angle because you don’t want to get in there and just chatter your feet, or you’re done. If you chatter your feet against the bigger receiver we about to play and it’s ‘stiff arm and get on the ground.’
For a team that’s advertised itself as multiple, how advantageous is it to have a guy like Wheeler who looks like he can pretty much do just about anything?
I’m excited and pleased with where Phil has gone since he’s been here and yes, that’s what you get. As long as we keep it multiple and still simply, Phil has done a good job with that. We liked his position flexibility, a coach’s team for it, because he can rush, he can drop, he can do those things. And he’s really taken to it. So as long as Phil continues to progress, we have some things we can do with Phil.
Encouraged by the pressure you generated the first couple games?
Yes, there’s good pressure. More encouraging is the guys working together and the mindset. It’s about mindset, it’s about ‘I know where I’m going and you got to deal with me.’
Transcript:
How do you feel about the progress of the defense?
Applying our rules, we’ve been doing pretty well. Learning how to work together, we’ve been doing pretty well. I liked that last game we got in stressful situations early because you want to see how we respond. Some of them we responded very well, some of them we gave up touchdowns. We need to hold those to field goals so we need to work on that area but it’s good to be put into those situations and have to keep having to go back out. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter where they get the ball. We don’t control where we get on the field on defense, we control whether we get off the field or not.
With the third preseason game, most coaches point to as the one ‘we sort of gameplan for and treat more as a preseason game’, how advantageous is it to have an offense like Detroit, which is one of the best in the league, and a team that really worked over a lot of these guys last year.
Yea, you know what’s good, is the order for us: You’ve got Dallas who can throw it and wants to run it downhill at you; you’ve got Arizona that shifts a little bit and still runs downhill at you and of course has a very good wide receiver; and you have Detroit that runs it more than most people think they do but it’s a little more spread out and they try to get matchups for their good players. Of course, we know the guy with the nickname who’s on the cover of ESPN The Magazine this week, but they have other players too and that quarterback gets it out. So it’s kind of a nice progression for us facing those three: two styles and then a little slightly different style with slightly different personnel groups so we can learn how to use our rules for all our different defenses.
Can you sense a real confidence and a swagger form some of these guys? They’ve been so outspoken about how much they love this scheme, particularly the safeties and the guys in the backfield about playing downfield and coming forward and a lot of the stuff they’re being asked to do. Can you sense their enthusiasm and everything that they’re putting forward?
What’s been good is that they’re going with our teaching process, which is this: we put it into categories and then they can see that even though the defense is slightly different, it’s still the same thing. That’s what gives the players confidence because they can do the same thing. Like the safeties, it might be a slightly different call or look different to the offense but in their world its the same. Then they see themsleves getting better and making more plays and its the same and it builds, and that’s where you build confidence. The other thing that’s happening is that these guys are learning how to work together and thats the key. It’s 11 men working together to stop the offense and we’re just the facilitators to that. That’s what breeds confidence and they’re on that track and hopefully we get some more situations to test our resolve this week and see how we do as a group, regardless of who the 11 on the field are.
When you hear a veteran like Richard Seymour, and some of the other veterans, Tommy Kelly, Michael Huff, agree that this can be a top-five defense, what’s your reaction to that?
Continue the process. It’s all about process, it really is. It’s about teaching progressions and process and putting everything together into categories so that we can progress to where we want to go. It’s great that they can see that because now they’re putting things together going ‘Oh, this looks like this. I see myself in this making plays’ but now we’ve got to do it and we’ve got to do it 11 guys together.
What’s top five to you? Most people agree that yardage can be deceiving. Other than points scored obviously, is it third down distance, what are the things you look at?
I’m glad you asked that. The number one thing with this and with defense is that you’ve got to control what you’re able to control. So last week we had the ball in our own zone, who cares? It’s not about where they start, it’s about what they finish with on the drive. So number one, of course is points allowed like you said, but points allowed is a team stat and that’s missed at times. Points allowed is attributed right to the defense but it’s a team stat. It’s a team game, that’s what’s great about it. How do you rank a top five defense? There’s a lot of ways, but the biggest one is getting the heck off the field and giving the ball back to Carson and the guys, okay? That’s the biggest one and that’s what we want to do. The other stats with that, that’s a result of controlling how we get off the field: third-down percentage, red zone touchdown percentage. Those are a couple that are good markers. The yards sometimes, I mean theres some games where they catch a couple of balls, tackle them and go to the next play. Now rushing yards is a big one because if they can run and pass on you at all times…
A lot of the guys think, a couple in particular, that this is already one of the better tackling teams they’ve had here in several years, yet there’s not a lot of tackling in practice, how do you accomplish that?
One thing is the emphasis on body position in tackling. This is a big deal to me anyway, because as a coach you want to help the players get better so you want to put them in positions number one where they’re not going to hurt themselves too. This is from teaching little kids to NFL players, you’ve got to teach them how to tackle. You’ve got to teach them to keep their hips down and their eyes up and their feet moving and the correct leverage and to know where their help is. We drill it, we drilled it at the beginning of practice today. We drill it, we emphasize it and in team periods we talk about, for example: if you and I are going to make a tackle and I’m on the outside of you, I’d say ‘outside, outside, outside.’ That lets those players that I’m on his outside. Those little things and knowing where your help is makes you a better tackling team, and then the body position. Knowing where your help is and your body position on contact are things we’ve emphasised since day one and you can do that without pads on.
You emphasise in the wrapping up part of course, in the game where Romo threw to Witten and Rolando hit him but he didn’t wrap up, did you take him and say ‘that was a good hit but you should have wrapped up’ or anything like that?
As he was coming off the field I said ‘that was a great job job on a bootleg like we’ve been working all camp, now wrap him up.’ That’s exactly what I told him.
Are there any position groups you’re going to be paying particularly close attention, especially with the backups this week, for some clarity?
You know what’s nice about Detroit is they’ve got the ability to change the tempo of the game on offense. They can put bigger guys on and run and take shots to the big receiver and their other guys who are fast or they can put three-wide receiver groups or flex Scheffler and different guys out and change the pace of the game. So I’m most interested in our process and how we handle those situation because we haven’t got a lot of that yet. That’s what I’m excited about Detroit for us, lets see what we can do. Player wise, group wise, i’m excited to watch them all. Hopefully Jack Crawford is back from injury, that would be one. He’d be good to see. Miles Burris continuing to progress. The d line continuing to work together. All those safeties being pieces of this defense, seeing who’s going to step up. Those are just a few I can think of. The young corners, seeing how the second, third, fourth, who’s ever in the game, those corners continue togel and see who’s going to compete to win, to help us.
How would you assess DeMarcus Van Dyke through the first two games?
DeMarcus, I would really like to see him play like he plays out here and just play with what we know he can do. He’s heard that from me this week, that’s what I’d like to see him do: play like he plays at practice because he plays pretty good at practice.
Back to the beginning of camp, Roland said ‘look, my personality isn’t to be a leader, I know they need me to be, I know that’s what a middle linebacker is’, where is he in that process?
That process, from working with Patrick Willis to the young men who became leaders at Stanford last year, to everybody that I’ve been around, it is a process. It’s constant communication after the drive. If we have an eight-play set in practice, hey come on over and lets talk about what went on, what did you do? It’s not as much one man. There’s a few unique ones like Mr Lewis and some of those guys, but for the most part in this league, it trades off who’s going to talk: Tommy, Michael Huff, Tyvon Branch, Ro, etc. It’s the 11 guys figuring out how to talk to each other so that’s what I’m trying to facilitate. If I see a conversation that may be headed in one way or another, hey, lets go over here, lets fix this here. But not while we’re on the field, when we get off the field. That’s our time to fix it. Just go to the next play when you’re on the field, that’s how you’ve got to fix things. Yes we’re working with Ro, he’s doing a great job so far and we’ll continue to do that, but it’s more than that. It’s guys working together, that’s what’s great about this game: 22 pieces move every play, and sometimes the officials move too, and they’ve got to analyze it and get the guy with the ball on the ground or take the ball away, and then go to the next play, so the leadership has to come outside in all the time.
Bartell was already recognized as a pretty solid tackling cornerback, but I don’t know the same could have been said about Shawntae Spencer. How much more comfortable is he than when he started in camp and how is his tackling?
Shawntae has really improved. Some of it is the drills and some of it is himself, his dedication to it. He made some nice tackles last week on the sideline and early in drives when he was in. He’s improved. I’m happy with where he is and where Ron is. Again, its’ the same thing, we emphasize a lot here and it comes from Coach Allen to us, to defensive coaches, where’s your help? If you know where your help is you can take a shot form the correct angle because you don’t want to get in there and just chatter your feet, or you’re done. If you chatter your feet against the bigger receiver we about to play and it’s ‘stiff arm and get on the ground.’
For a team that’s advertised itself as multiple, how advantageous is it to have a guy like Wheeler who looks like he can pretty much do just about anything?
I’m excited and pleased with where Phil has gone since he’s been here and yes, that’s what you get. As long as we keep it multiple and still simply, Phil has done a good job with that. We liked his position flexibility, a coach’s team for it, because he can rush, he can drop, he can do those things. And he’s really taken to it. So as long as Phil continues to progress, we have some things we can do with Phil.
Encouraged by the pressure you generated the first couple games?
Yes, there’s good pressure. More encouraging is the guys working together and the mindset. It’s about mindset, it’s about ‘I know where I’m going and you got to deal with me.’
Piff Tannen
Superstar
Anybody else worried how deficient our offense has looked so far. I know Denarius hasn't played or Taiwan but still i would think the 1 st team offense would be able to get a td. I would of that offense would come out swinging being the fact; that damn near all the Raider Wrs had been working out with Palmer in La and throughout the OTA's including te Ausberry and we kept Al Saunders around who knows the personnel well enough to make the transition smoother to the new offense. Knapp needs to go if the offense starting looking it did in 08 and i mean as soon as possible; Before McKenzie gave him the boot, Hue had turned around the offensive completely and was to 10 offense before they had him his release papers.
I'm hoping that its because its the preseason. Maybe Knapp keeping it vanilla until the regular season starts. I hope so, because if this is what we should expect on offense its gonna be
We will see soon though.