The second quarter of Sunday’s game in Las Vegas was a coming out party of sorts for Isaiah Pola-Mao. The third-year safety ended two Jaguars drives with forced fumbles.
The first punch-out gave the Raiders an extra possession. The second one took a score off the board as the Jaguars had driven into field goal range and sent the two teams to the half with the Raiders holding a 13-7 lead.
Pola-Mao has been starting at safety for the Raiders since Week four, after the loss of Marcus Epps for the season with an ACL injury.
While it hasn’t always been great play for Pola-Mao, the former undrafted free agent held his own in his first real NFL starting opportunity. One that was three years in the making.
“He’s been learning how to play in this league on special teams, correcting some of the stuff we saw from college that he needed to get corrected with his tackling,” Defensive Coordinator Patrick Graham said of Pola-Mao. “He’s done a good job with that. And then when he gets his opportunity, he makes the most of it. Talking about guys you’re proud of in terms of his growth and development, he’s one of them.”
Pola-Mao has hung around these past three seasons, mostly on special teams. He had never started a game on defense and only once saw more than 35% of the snaps in a game.
But for a guy in his position, he became a hot topic in training camp for the plays he was making. He had earned the confidence of the coaching staff to be the next man up both at safety and big nickel. So, when it was his time to step into a starting role, he was ready.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, just throw him in.’ No, we were ready for him to play,” said head coach Antonio Pierce. “And all he’s done is taken every advantage of it. He’s vocal. He has a quiet . . . confidence about himself now. He has all the ability in the world; tall, long, can run, ball skills, physicality showed up [Sunday]. He’s really put himself in a good place. And it really started in the offseason when he was here every day after the Super Bowl.”
Marcus Epps is set to become an unrestricted free agent this offseason. As is fellow starter Tre’von Moehrig. While Pola-Mao will be a restricted free agent the Raiders could easily retain with a tender.
Which means they could focus on re-signing Moehrig, allow Epps to hit free agency and have Pola-Mao and Moehrig as their projected starters next season while focusing on other position upgrades.
