You may have heard tell of the expectations of the Raiders defense. There is no question, they are riding high and after the way they played down the stretch last season, they have earned that swagger. By the same token, you may not have heard much about the offense. And there’s a reason for that. Mainly that there isn’t much to write home about. At least not in a positive way.
To be fair, the defense has a lot going for them right now which the offense simply does not have. They have a defensive head coach and pretty much the entire defensive staff back along with most of the defensive starters. Plus Christian Wilkins.
The offense has none of that. They have almost an entirely new offensive staff and a new quarterback competition going on between Aidan O’Connell and Gardner Minshew.
This night-and-day difference has been on full display on the practice field through two minicamp practices.
Wednesday’s practice was particularly cringe-worthy for the offense. While Tuesday wasn’t great, it featured one or two nice throws from O’Connell and Minshew. So, you could be generous and say it was an up-and-down day. Wednesday there was nothing to be generous about.
The only good throws on the day were a couple deep passes by third teamer Anthony Brown. Meanwhile O’Connell’s passes were often wildly off target and Minshew’s passes lacked any zip and many times could be referred to as wounded ducks.
The results were expected. Several passes broken up, batted down, or simply out of reach of the receiver. Along with three interceptions on the day. O’Connell threw two of them – one to Jack Jones and the other to rookie MJ Devonshire. Then it was Jakorian Bennett who ended practice by picking off Minshew.
Basically the analysis of today was tantamount to W00F.
It’s important, however, to take this for what it’s worth. On one hand, you do expect better than was shown on the field over the past two days, especially when there’s no real threat from the defense on the pass rush in non-padded practices. On the other hand, this is a new offense and we are a long way from the start of the season.
Leave it to Raiders All Pro receiver Davante Adams to put it in perspective by taking a page out of Allen Iverson’s book.
“What is that called out there that we just did?” Adams asked, to which the answer was ‘practice’. “That’s it, right? This is the opportunity to get all that stuff ironed out. There’s going to be a lot of mistakes. There’s going to be mistakes made during the season, but this time of the year gives us the opportunity to get ahead of it and learn the system.”
Adams has not been seeing any reps on minicamp. He’s familiar with new OC Luke Getsy’s scheme from his time in Green Bay. So, right now, for the most part, he’s letting the rest of the receiving corps familiarize themselves with it. The benefit here for him is he doesn’t have to run himself ragged while the quarterbacks go through their growing pains.
For Adams, running routes and getting open only to have a ball sail over his head or fall short and get batted down, can be frustrating because of the standard he had for himself and wanting to actually feel a play work in practice before seeing it on game day. But frustration is on a rep-by-rep basis. On the whole, it’s way too early to be frustrated about the offensive struggles.
“You got to have realistic expectations at this point, but always keep your standard where it’s supposed to be,” Adams added.
“The frustration comes in midseason when we haven’t made the progress that we need. At this point you’re not a very mature or experienced football player if you’re getting frustrated in mandatory minicamp.”
While you’d like to see positive signs from the top two quarterbacks and the offense, right now all you can do is note it as not ideal, and hope this is not where they will be come August.
