The Las Vegas Raiders have their first practice back in Henderson, Nev., on Tuesday night, and some players who had good showings in Saturday’s preseason opener should take heed.
Practice is where they will make the roster.
“There was a couple guys that showed up that hadn’t been doing so well in practice, and they put the pads on, and they played at a different level,” Raiders coach Antonio Pierce said Sunday. “But that’s not pro football. Pro football is doing it in the meeting rooms, walkthroughs and practice. That’s the way you build trust and accountability with your teammates and the coaches.”
Otherwise, they will never make it to a regular-season game.
“It’s great that some of those guys did that in the game,” Pierce said, “but if they can’t do it throughout the week, we can’t trust them to put them out there in the game.”
The backup linebackers, defensive linemen and running backs will have two more weeks of practice and two more preseason games to make their case, but for the two quarterbacks, it seems like they will only have one. Pierce said that he would like to decide on a starting quarterback after Saturday night’s game against the visiting Dallas Cowboys.
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Gardner Minshew came in the game in the second quarter and was 6-of-12 for 117 yards and a touchdown before halftime, while Aidan O’Connell was 7-of-9 for 76 yards in his lone drive with the first team.
Pierce was happy with how both quarterbacks — as well as the offensive line — played against the Minnesota Vikings on Saturday.
“Both guys contributed and put us in scoring positions,” Pierce said. “I thought our O-line did a good job in that first group of just really protecting the quarterback, getting off the rock like we talked about.”
It’s been a friendly and even competition, with Minshew and O’Connell cheering each other on from the sideline.
“We’re competing for the role to help the Raiders and that’s what we want,” Minshew told reporters after the game. “We want to help this team win. I’ve never been on a team where one quarterback plays the whole time. There’s going to be an opportunity. We both have to hang in there and lead the offense when we’re in. It was a lot of fun (Saturday) competing with our whole group.”
Minshew led two touchdown drives, the first one capped off by a 20-yard over-the-shoulder pass to DJ Turner, who put some punctuation on a great training camp in Costa Mesa, Calif.
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“It felt good,” Turner told reporters after the game. “After two and a half weeks of just going against teammates, it’s always good to face another team, get different looks, and not run the same routes against the same guys every day.
“I beat the guy off the line and ran into the daylight. As soon as I looked at Gardner, he looked at me, and I knew I was going to walk into the end zone.”
Pierce, meanwhile, was not as pleased with his defense. His first team gave up some big pass plays, and the Vikings were able to run the ball all day (6.5 yards per carry).
“It’s just the ability to get off blocks,” Pierce said. “It’s different when you’re in training camp and going against your own guys. You don’t throw nobody on the ground, there’s not a lot of violent sheds.
“But we need to get back to being heavy-handed, getting off blocks, second-level defenders just getting the right fits. Not falling back too soon.”
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There was too much open space.
“Too many open lanes where those running backs were coming down full speed,” Pierce said, “down in the second level and even up to our safeties, and obviously created big plays.”
Pierce did praise his starting secondary — “Tre’von (Moehrig), Jack Jones, Marcus Epps, JB (Jakorian Bennett), all did a really good job in their reps,” he said — and there were a couple of backup linebackers who stood out. More than they had at practice.
Amari Burney, a 6-foot-2, 228-pound sixth-round pick a year ago, had three tackles, one for a loss of yards, and the athleticism of a former college safety was evident.
“I thought Burney did a really good job,” Pierce said. “I thought he was physical coming downhill, made some plays in zone coverage, breaking. I mean, you can see the strides, and he just has to keep doing that. But it was a really good first game for him.”
Amari Gainer is an undrafted rookie free agent out of North Carolina who had three tackles against the Vikings and roamed far downfield to leap and tip a pass. The 6-3, 236-pound Gainer rushed the quarterback a lot at Florida State before transferring, and is still pretty raw.
“Amari did a really good job,” Pierce said. “He’s a physical, pretty-looking linebacker, man. He can run and he just needs more reps at linebacker. He’s played all over the place in college. Once he gets his feet settled, playing off the linebacker, he’ll give himself a chance.”
At the end of Saturday’s game, Pierce confused many by taking timeouts with the Vikings driving for a late, game-winning field goal. He said it was a mistake.
“Yeah, lesson learned,” Pierce said. “(Game management coach) Matt Sheldon … I think all of us need to go back and evaluate it. It’s the preseason. There were things that we want to do differently in the preseason than we’ll do in the regular season.”
Pierce also gave an injury update, saying that left tackle Kolton Miller (shoulder) and rookie guard Jackson Powers-Johnson (concussion) are expected back in a week. Receiver Davante Adams returned to the team Sunday after the birth of his son.
(Photo: Jeffrey Becker / USA Today)
