Training Camp Day 6

[R4Life]

August 01, 2007
When Al Davis speaks, people listen

Al Davis spoke at the Raiders’ training camp in Napa today.
Too many subjects to hit because he spoke for an hour, but here are some interesting points:
* Money isn’t holding up the contract talks with JaMarcus Russell (don’t believe that).
* He believes receiver Randy Moss (now with New England) can still play when healthy. Davis said the Raiders’ coaching staff disagreed.
* He admitted to acquiring players like Moss with the thinking of how he’d coach a team, which might be why Moss didn’t work out.
* He definitely wanted Daunte Culpepper, but coach Lane Kiffin had the final say.
-- Jason Jones

Posted by tnegrete at 03:58 PM

Camp observations, Aug. 1

More from Napa.…
No need to ask again anytime soon.
Robert Gallery is a guard.
Barry Sims is out with a buttocks injury. The Raiders kept Gallery at guard and moved Gallery’s backup, Paul McQuistan, to left tackle.
* Coach Lane Kiffin is trying to put some mental pressure on his quarterbacks by adding Daunte Culpepper. He said he wants to see who responds to adversity well – or if anyone pouts.
In case you’re wondering, that’s a message to Andrew Walter.
* The offense didn’t look good today. In addition to Walter’s struggles, Josh McCown threw a couple of picks.
* Defensive tackle Josh Shaw declared today, “Sack Wednesday.” After Kiffin told this to the offense, McQuistan said it would be “No Sack Wednesday.”
I lost count of how many sacks the Raiders would have given up if it were a game.
--Jason Jones

Posted by tnegrete at 03:56 PM

Culpepper looks rusty in silver and black

There’s a lot going on in Napa.
Daunte Culpepper practiced this morning. He’s not wearing a brace on his right knee. He’s a little rusty, as expected. A few passes floated on receivers, but that should all come together as he continues to work with the Raiders.
Andrew Walter had his worst practice of camp. He threw four interceptions this morning and defenders dropped at least two more.
Walter’s time with the Raiders lately hasn’t been pleasant. He was a piñata last season. Now the Raiders have brought in two veterans and drafted JaMarcus Russell.
His best bet might be with another team. After the beating he took in 2006, the Raiders have made it clear where he stands.
That would be with a clipboard, on the sidelines and wearing a baseball cap.
More on Al Davis speaking, and other musings from the morning practice and Russell’s contract status.
--Jason Jones

Posted by tnegrete at 03:51 PM

 

[Crossbones]

Few things:

• Was just wsatching NFLN and they were showing some more clips of Jamarcus. Gaaaaaaaawd...man that guy can throw the ball. We need him here ASAP. Why? He will be our startingt QB by week 6 assumiong he's here soon.

• Reading the reports from camp tells me we're in for a long season with the offensive line. They suck and it's clear they still do. Who really would have thought differently? This is going to take time. In the meantime, Russell needs to be in there learning, taking his lumps and getting ready to lead the Return To Glory.

The offense didn’t look good today. In addition to Walter’s struggles, Josh McCown threw a couple of picks.
* Defensive tackle Josh Shaw declared today, “Sack Wednesday.” After Kiffin told this to the offense, McQuistan said it would be “No Sack Wednesday.”
I lost count of how many sacks the Raiders would have given up if it were a game.

• It would be a miracle if Andrew Walter hasn't asked to be traded or released. Clearly the team has no confidence that Walter can be the man. Since the end of the season we've drafted a QB #1, traded for a vet QB, and now signed Culpepper. Clearly the coaches see tghings we don't and if the strongest Walter supporter hasn't to see the hand writing on the wall by now well ..... Helllllo.

• Gallery is a guard from now on. OK...turn into Steve Hutchinson and I'm happy. Otherwise --- go f/ck yourself. (I'm still pulling for him to do something but man it's getting difficult --- year four coming up)

 

[Angry Pope]

• It would be a miracle if Andrew Walter hasn't asked to be traded or released. Clearly the team has no confidence that Walter can be the man. Since the end of the season we've drafted a QB #1, traded for a vet QB, and now signed Culpepper. Clearly the coaches see tghings we don't and if the strongest Walter supporter hasn't to see the hand writing on the wall by now well ..... Helllllo.

They don't have to have the confidence that he can be the man to keep him. I am not that big of a Walter fan but I see where we can come out ahead here.
I don't like throwing draft picks away, much less one that came in the third round.

Here we have Walter who is in the midst of a rookie contract, doesn't need to be the starter because there are others in front of him. We hired a lot of new coaches who should be able to coach a player up, especially one who has some talent.

Best case scenario, he develops into a good backup and provides us with a third round pick in the draft.

Worst scenario, he becomes third string next year and his salary allows us to do that.

I am looking at from a business point of you and it looks like something that might has some value.

 

[R4Life]

Training camp, Day 6 (A.M.)
Posted by Jerry McDonald - NFL Writer on Wednesday at 5:00 pm

News and notes, sights and sounds from Wednesday's first training camp practice:

– Daunte Culpepper was eased into his first practice as a Raider.

Wearing No. 8, Culpepper participated in drills and did very little in team sessions. He handed the ball of a few times, fumbled one snap and appeared rusty with his passing, throwing well outside Mike Williams on one pass and badly overthrowing Ronald Curry with another.

He played without a knee brace, and although there was some concern expressed privately within the organization concerning Culpepper's weight, he didn't appear to look much different physically than he did with the Vikings or Dolphins.

Both Lane Kiffin and Al Davis said Culpepper would be brought along slowly.

"Obviously, he's got a lot of ways to go in our playbook to catch up to speed with us, " Kiffin said. "But it was good to have him out here today so he can start to get a feel for things."

Said Davis: "We've had great success through the years with guys like Culpepper, giving 'em a little time to heal, a little time to get back in stride, not pushing 'em, not rushing 'em into something."

– A few days ago, Kiffin's one-word answer regarding the reason for JaMarcus Russell's absence from training camp was "money."

At a press conference Wednesday, Davis said regarding Russell, "It's not money. It's ridiculous."

According to Davis the issue is the desire from Russell's camp to put big money into an "option bonus" which he said doesn't allow the team to recoup money in the event of a player who holds out, leaves the team or gets in trouble.

"Our only problem with the Russell contract is they want all of the money as an option bonus and I will not do that," Davis said.

An arbitrator's ruling in favor of wide receiver Ashley Lelie in which he was awarded nearly $900,000 in salary and recinded fines after holding out in Denver has Davis and other owners wary of option bonuses. Lelie did not report Denver after the Broncos traded for Green Bay receiver Javon Walker.

Lelie now plays for the 49ers.

Davis sounds willing to wait out Russell's agents, Eric Metz and Ethan Lock, until the deal is structured to his liking.

Russell's agents have consistently declined all opportunity to comment.

"They have the first choice they've ever had and they've got to come through with a decent deal otherwise they are done in the market," Davis said.

– Culpepper's one-year contract includes a $1.6 million salary and $1.6 million roster bonus, with $750,000 of his salary guaranteed. The Raiders were approximately $13.5 million under the salary cap before the deal.] Awesome Al.

– Josh McCown had a considerably stronger practice than he did on Tuesday, when he conceded he "played like crap." He threw two more interceptions, but one was a Tommy Kelly deflection that ended up in the arms of Warren Sapp.

Andrew Walter, on the other hand, may have had the worst practice of career. He threw interceptions to Fabian Washington, Robert Thomas, Donovin Darius and Thomas Howard. At least three other passes were nearly intercepted.

Both will be watched closely to see how they respond to Culpepper's arrival.

"How are they going to deal with adversities? They're going to happen," Kiffin said. "Are you going to rise to the top or are you going to pout? We're going to find some things out."

Davis, who once considered Walter his quarterback of the future, thinks he needs time to recover from the 46 sacks and countless knockdowns he absorbed last season.

"What did Nolan Richardson call it at Arkansas (in basketball), 40 minutes of hell?," Davis said. "Well that poor Andrew last year got hit so many times, I don't think he knew where they were coming from."

They were coming from everywhere.

– Kiffin spent the latter part of practice drilling the Raiders offense and defense for specific game situations.

"It's fourth-and-17 and the offense is down by three _ knock down the pass and the game is over _ we don't need a turnover and we don't want a defensive penalty," Kiffin said to his team.

McCown sailed a pass over Travis Taylor.

"Eight seconds on the clock, third-and-5, no time-outs, down by three," Kiffin said.

Walter threw his fourth interception of the day to Howard.

"Foruth-and-12 at the 12, five seconds left, last play of the game," Kiffin said.

Howard broke up a McCown pass at the goal line.

It's nothing like a year ago, but yes, the defense is a head of the offense.

– During a daily drill in which Raiders receivers catch footballs with colored tips, Curry latched on to one pass and shouted "Orange! . . . no, red." For the record, it was red.

– After two practice sessions off because of a sore lower back, LaMont Jordan had what might have been his best practice carrying the ball and also had a number of nice catches during drills _ including some difficult stop routes when Culpepper was deliberately throwing behind him, a pass designed to run the defender out of the play.

– The right knee injury sustained by Stanford Routt, which Kiffin originally thought was minor, is something more.

"We got an MRI and it could be a few weeks on this," Kiffin said.

Routt put the time out at closer to a week.

Chris Carr took over Routt's spot with the first nickel defense.

– Left tackle Barry Sims (abdominal strain), defensive back John Bowie (Achilles), running back ReShard Lee (knee) and cornerback Duane Starks (hamstring) did not practice and were termed by Kiffin as day to day.

– The Raiders waived QB Cody Pickett and DE Bill Swancutt. Tackle Adrian Klemm, a former second-round draft pick out of Hawaii who played with New England from 2000 through 2004 and had eight starts for Green Bay in 2005, is in camp on a tryout basis. The Raiders signed center Jesse Boone, a first-year player out of Utah who played most recently in NFL Europa.

– Davis spoke to the assembled media for a little over an hour Wednesday, using most of the time to speak about the death of Bill Walsh but also touching on a number of other subjects.

Davis announced that Raider legend Jim Otto had his right leg amputated above the knee and is in a Salt Lake City hospital.

"It's been, as you know with him, a tremendous fight," Davis said. "He's lived through it now for three years, day in and day out. But it finally came. He fought the amputation. He didn't want it. He fought it. But here was no other thing to do but to amputate."

– Davis said he wanted to begin a quarterback award to be given on the West Coast in Walsh's name, and also talked about his desire to see a new program for NFL veterans regarding benefits and pensions.

– When asked if he fears the NFL could have a situation similar to the NBA, with officials being involved in gambling, Davis said, "I don't worry about gambling. I worry about bias."

 

[Angry Pope]

So Culpepper's bonus is a roster bonus...that is good work.

 

[BigTron]

Thomas Howard is going to break out this year. Sleeper pro-bowl candidate?

 

[R4Life]

Here's a video that includes abbreviated Culpeppers' comments and Coach Kiffin's comments on day 6

 

[Angry Pope]

Photos from today...

 

[SoCalRaider]

– Josh McCown had a considerably stronger practice than he did on Tuesday, when he conceded he "played like crap." He threw two more interceptions, but one was a Tommy Kelly deflection that ended up in the arms of Warren Sapp.

Andrew Walter, on the other hand, may have had the worst practice of career. He threw interceptions to Fabian Washington, Robert Thomas, Donovin Darius and Thomas Howard. At least three other passes were nearly intercepted.

This guy McDonald might be the biggest McCown ballwasher of 'em all. How clever to put McCown's pathetic practice in context with Walter's slightly more pathetic practice. It's a sad day when the freakin Associated Press can give a more unbiased illustration of how bad both QBs really are...

[FONT=Arial,sans-serif]Culpepper got only a little work in the morning practice Wednesday, as McCown and Walter shared most of the snaps with the first team. McCown threw two interceptions, and Walter had four during the morning practice.

[/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif]"It's unacceptable," Kiffin said. "We're turning the ball over too much right now and we'll lose a lot of games real fast if we keep that up."[/FONT]

 

[Angry Pope]

Coach Kiffin Camp Q&A: Day 6

July 31, 2007

Raiders Head Coach Lane Kiffin addressed the media after Day 6 of Training Camp 2007. Coach Kiffin talked QB Daunte Culpepper's first practice as a Raider and running backs coach Tom Rathman.

Kiffin: First of two practices today, obvious story line Daunte Culpepper came out here for his first practice, he was in our meeting last night and this morning before we came out here trying to catch him up, obviously he has a long way to go in our playbook to catch up to speed with us, but it was good to have him out here today so he could start to get a feel for things. We’ll slowly integrate him into our offense and get to a point where he is taking more reps than he is now.

Q: How is his conditioning is it where you want it?

Kiffin: Conditioning is not an issue from what we saw yesterday. We put him through a very high tempo workout, one that if a guy was not in shape he would have been down on all fours half way through and he made it through. One of the best parts about it is every time we gave him a small break, like 15 seconds before the next snap he was back in there trying to go at a faster speed, so once again great competitor.

Q: Can you briefly address the philosophy as far as bringing him in.

Kiffin: We’re always going to explore any option that can put us in a more competitive mode in any position to make us better to give us a better chance to win.

Q: What has impressed you about him so far?

Kiffin: Great Competitor, the way he was last night in the meetings he jumped right in, he was in the front row of the meeting room taking notes and paying attention, this was not a guy who was going to come in and go through the motions and we researched that, that’s why he is here because he’s a great competitor. This is a guy who does not want to sit on the bench, this is a guy who wants to play and has great confidence in himself and that’s what we’re looking for.

Q: Was there a reason you didn’t make a deal to get him earlier?

Kiffin: There’s all kinds of things that go into it, and obviously I feel we did a great job by waiting it out, we didn’t have to give up any compensation. We waited for this to happen, we waited for the right time for it to work for all of us.

Q: What was appealing about Tom Rathman that made you want to bring him in as your running backs coach?

Kiffin: What you get with Tom Rathman is a dynamic competitor. He was as a player and he is as a coach and that’s not always the case, just because a guy is a great competitive player does not mean he is going to be that way as a coach and this guy is. He has taken to coaching the way he did as a player and if you watch him out there he coaches every play. In the off-season he is out there as much as he can with the young guys, he couldn’t be more serious about being a great coach and he’s got a lot left. This is going to be a guy that people are going to be looking at to be a coordinator in the league as well.

 

[007]

This guy McDonald might be the biggest McCown ballwasher of 'em all. How clever to put McCown's pathetic practice in context with Walter's slightly more pathetic practice. It's a sad day when the freakin Associated Press can give a more unbiased illustration of how bad both QBs really are...

1: I don't know if its actually ballwashing, SoCal...He said he was stronger, he didnt say the guy looked like Gannon.

2: I won't be suprised if Walter is outta here by September. If Kiffin can cut Bing without watching him play a snap in camp, he damn well can cut Walter for throwing 10 INT's per session...

 

[SoCalRaider]

Kiffin: Great Competitor, the way he was last night in the meetings he jumped right in, he was in the front row of the meeting room taking notes and paying attention

I'm more of a back row, text message the blonde on the other side of the room kind of guy... but I really like reading that about Culpepper. Can very easily envision Russell sitting next to Culpepper in the front row trying to get involved. Just lead by example, baby.

 

[SoCalRaider]

1: I don't know if its actually ballwashing, SoCal...He said he was stronger, he didnt say the guy looked like Gannon.

It sure as hell looks like dripping wet ballwashing to me. Every other news outlet I've read or watched today has said McCown sucked monkey balls for the 2nd straight day with DC looking over his shoulder. Maybe McCown is sucking McDonald's balls too because McDonald is the ONLY member of the media that has been relentlessly pimping McCown since day 1. I've yet to read anything from McDonald about McCown's limited accuracy, suspect decision making, and TG-like arm.

 

[Angry Pope]

1: I don't know if its actually ballwashing, SoCal...He said he was stronger, he didnt say the guy looked like Gannon.

2: I won't be suprised if Walter is outta here by September. If Kiffin can cut Bing without watching him play a snap in camp, he damn well can cut Walter for throwing 10 INT's per session...

Kiffin has seen plenty from Bing in their time together at USC. Bing was just an average safety. With all of the safeties in training camp, I don't see a reason to keep him around. If we have to get down to 80 players plus the NFL Europe players for training camp, why not cut from a position we have a high number of.

On the other side, McCown has thrown a lot of interceptions himself. Kiffin hasn't seen much of Walter other than film and when he played against in college.

Even Al mentioned Walter today saying he was the victim of a poor line.

EDIT: BJ Ward has been mentioned quite a bit...there is one guy that wants a job.

 

[007]

It sure as hell looks like dripping wet ballwashing to me. Every other news outlet I've read or watched today has said McCown sucked monkey balls for the 2nd straight day with DC looking over his shoulder. Maybe McCown is sucking McDonald's balls too because McDonald is the ONLY member of the media that has been relentlessly pimping McCown since day 1. I've yet to read anything from McDonald about McCown's limited accuracy, suspect decision making, and TG-like arm.

How bout every 'other' news outlet saying Culpepper looked shaky and rusty?

Im glad to have competition in camp, but if J-Mac saying McCown looked stronger after his worst session as a Raider, I'll usually trust the guy.

 

[Crossbones]

It sure as hell looks like dripping wet ballwashing to me. Every other news outlet I've read or watched today has said McCown sucked monkey balls for the 2nd straight day with DC looking over his shoulder. Maybe McCown is sucking McDonald's balls too because McDonald is the ONLY member of the media that has been relentlessly pimping McCown since day 1. I've yet to read anything from McDonald about McCown's limited accuracy, suspect decision making, and TG-like arm.

Seems to me we have a Class A quarterback controversy. Perfect. Well anyway with this crappy OL we're probably going to have to carry four quarterbacks, maybe even five. Let's not fool ourselves. While the QB situation is a problem, unless this offensive line wakes up good none of the QBs have a friggin' chance.

On another note, our defense is kicking ass. What is that 40 INT'S in 5 days?

 

[007]

Kiffin has seen plenty from Bing in their time together at USC. Bing was just an average safety. With all of the safeties in training camp, I don't see a reason to keep him around. If we have to get down to 80 players plus the NFL Europe players for training camp, why not cut from a position we have a high number of.

Hard to call Bing an 'average safety' when he's never played a fucking snap in the NFL, isnt it?

I'd say a Thorpe finalist and a well respected member of USC's championship team deserved to play a preseason game or two before we snipped his balls off and punted him across the bay.

I agree that it was a numbers game, but I thought the move was absolutely premature.

You give a guy a couple practices at least...We at least let Pickett and some other trash hang around and play a few snaps in camp.

 

[Angry Pope]

Pickett we needed some arms to throw in training camp.

Average safety...in the box safety with not much speed...there are a lot of those. Evidently, Kiffin had seen enough. Either Bing wanted out or Kiffin didn't think as highly of him as you did. That means more reps for who is left.

 

[Raider Nation]

I'd say a Thorpe finalist and a well respected member of USC's championship team deserved to play a preseason game or two before we snipped his balls off and punted him across the bay.

Did he sign with the 49ers?

 

[Angry Pope]

Did he sign with the 49ers?

Yes, the 49ers claimed him off waivers.

That Rob Ryan and company saw him as a linebacker last year says something. He also slid in the draft from a potential second round pick to the fourth round...accolades aside. There was also talk that he could of lasted until the fifth round.

EDIT: We actually saw him as a linebacker prior to the draft...that was the rumor.