The Las Vegas Raiders have come to California, Costa Mesa, specifically for training camp, and as always, where the Silver and Black go, so do we.
The pads are on, and the 2024 NFL Training Camp is popping; today, we offer OT Thayer Munford and everything he said from training camp.
The Raiders are fortunate to have Antonio Pierce as their head coach. Here is a partial transcript of his most recent press conference.
Q: Conversely, that’s a pretty good defense over on the other side of the ball. What have you seen from that group so far?
Coach Pierce: “Yeah, the question was asked earlier in the week, ‘Why not do joint practices?’ I said, because I think we got a pretty good defense to judge it on, and I think you guys have seen that. The defense is what you’re expecting in year three. And when you got guys like Robert Spillane, Marcus Epps, Maxx Crosby, Christian Wilkins, and all those guys playing at a high level, and more importantly communicating at a high level. And now Patrick’s [Graham] out there and he’s playing Russian roulette, right? He’s just throwing it out there, playing dice, and these guys are just making the calls and adjustments. A very tight knit group. You can see the energy and excitement that they have for one another when they make plays, and they expect to dominate, and they’re doing such.”
There were a couple plays where a defensive back was talking to a receiver, a receiver talking to a defensive back after a rep. As a coach, when you see them working with guys on the other side of the ball, is there anything more that gets you excited in that?
Coach Pierce: “No, I love it. Even when it’s trash talk, at some point you got stop it and you got to line up and play again the next snap. But I think it’s good, it’s that competitive spirit that we’re looking for. And we’ll do that out here on the grass and then, like I said, when we get on the bus and go back to the hotel, we’re teammates and we’re Raiders. I think these guys are doing a really good job of just buying into what I’m asking them to do. I just want us to compete. And to me, if we can compete against each other like that, fight, sweat and go about it, and damn near get blood out there on the field, we’ll be a really good group and unit and team come Sundays
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