Oakland Raiders Camp Battles: Defensive linemen
With training camp close on the horizon, the Oakland Raiders have a critical camp battle developing on the defensive line.
Rookies and veterans are scheduled to report to the Napa Valley Marriott for the opening of Oakland Raiders training camp at the end of July. The first preseason game kicks off Aug. 12 at the University of Phoenix Stadium against the Arizona Cardinals at 10:00 p.m. ET. John Pagano and Ken Norton Jr. have a tough task of balancing the defensive equation and making sure it is equal the sum of its parts. So the Raiders need to hit the ground running and players need to win their positional competitions.
Battles are won and lost in the trenches. He who controls the line of scrimmage controls the game. That’s just the way that it is and the way that it always will be. A central flaw of the Raiders last season was the lack of pressure and push generated up through the A and B gaps. This is indicative of issues with the defensive line.
With the help of Pro Football Reference, we are able to chart the statistics of last years defensive line. In all honesty, the Raiders were forced to play all of their NFL newborns in starting capacities. Combining these stats with the latest projected depth chart from the fine folks at Our Lads makes finding two established, clear-cut starters heading into camp extremely difficult. Though it’s not an unexpected occurrence as general manager Reggie McKenzie identified and hopefully addressed this concern in the draft.
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The average age on this defensive line is slightly over 23.6 years old. Justin Ellis, Denico Autry and Branden Jackson, are the oldest veterans remaining veterans. Mario Edwards Jr. is entering his third year in the league and still is younger than rookies Treyvon Hester and Fadol Brown. Paul Boyette Jr., Eddie Vanderdoes and Jimmy Bean are all older than baby vets Darius Latham and Jihad Ward.
There was a lot of rawness and youth across the board defensively in 2016 and it showed. Calling on players who were both inexperienced and not fully developed to maintain two-gap control at the point of attack in the NFL is a recipe for disaster.
Heading into training camp, change appears to be on the horizon. Competition brings out the best in your roster and in order to start four of these men must dominate each other. We are going to split up the combatants into two categories the old and the new.