Three days are now in the books for the Raiders. And for the quarterbacks there hasn’t been a whole lot to celebrate.
A rough day two on Thurday seemed to rebound with some nice looking passes to begin Friday’s practice. But it wouldn’t last.
The first team sessions saw Aidan O’Connell throw a couple of nice looking passes to Jakobi Meyers. Though, the first may not have actually gotten off in an actual game, the pass itself was perfectly placed to Meyers in the back of the end zone with Meyers climbing the ladder to get it.
The very next play, O’Connell found Meyers again on a crossing pattern for another score. A bit later, in one-on-ones, O’Connell found Meyers a couple more times, with Meyers getting the better of Jack Jones on both passes.
After leading the team with eight touchdown catches last season, Meyers has become a serious red zone threat for the Raiders.
“That’s probably the most important,” Meyers said of the red zone. “That’s the toughest part of the field. Less space, less time. If we can capitalize in the red zone, we’ll be a much better team.”
He also found Brock Bowers, who leapt over a defender to make the catch over the middle.
Then Gardner Minshew came in and twice found Harrison Bryant for touchdowns.
It was a welcome sight to see the offense have some success against this offense. I say was, because that’s where it ended. From there on out, it was back to being all defense.
Jack Jones would knock down consecutive passes for Jakobi Meyers and Davante Adams. The one to Adams looked like it might be a touchdown, but Jones punched it out. Then a few plays later, Maxx Crosby got pressure on the right side, causing O’Connell to throw up a duck that Jones got under for the interception.
Isaiah Pola Mao got into the act too, streaking over to the left sideline to pick off O’Connell. And Jones batted down another pass from O’Connell to Adams.
“That’s one thing that PG [Patrick Graham] has been stressing to us that we got to improve our red zone defense this year,” said safety Marcus Epps. “He’s been putting a lot of attention and energy into it and we’ve been doing the same. We understand that’s an area we need to improve, so it’s something we’ve made a point of emphasis.”
Practice ended on consecutive plays from inside the five that saw the defensive line snuff out the offense, one a run stop and the other Christian Wilkins knifing into the backfield to make the sack.
I suppose at least even if it fell apart, that there was some early success. Maybe something to build upon in the hopes that at some point we can say the offense got the better of the defense overall. That has yet to happen and it only figures to get more difficult once pads go on.