ASSOCIATED PRESS
Las Vegas Raiders Defensive tackle Christian Wilkins during NFL football training camp Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Costa Mesa, Calif.
Wednesday, July 31, 2024 | 2 a.m.
COSTA MESA, Calif. — Christian Wilkins bulldozed the Raiders’ interior offensive line, blew up a play and boasted about it.
The Raiders’ new $110 million defensive tackle got in the faces of his offensive teammates and told them they couldn’t stop him. The starting group of offensive linemen stood still and took the belittlement before coming out the next play and paving a big hole for rookie running back Dylan Laube to fire through untouched.
Players like right guard Dylan Parham and right tackle Thayer Munford took a lot of grief from Wilkins and edge rusher Maxx Crosby at the Raiders’ first padded practice of the year Tuesday morning. But they also gave a lot of it back.
“We chip and chirp back and forth, and we’ve got two vocal people on the other side of the ball,” Parham said. “They make it a little bit easy to have that type of energy toward them.”
The first full-contact practice is annually hailed as one of the most important sessions of training camp, and this year’s version for the Raiders lived up to the hype.
It was a spirited affair — especially early during the aforementioned period when the opposing lines squared off against each other in a running drill.
The run game continued to be the focus of the two-hour practice after passing had taken precedence while the team was in shorts for the last week. Both sides of the ball had their moments.
Wilkins and Crosby may have led the charge on the biggest moments, but the offensive line also sprung the likes of Zamir White, Alexander Mattison, and yes, Laube — a sixth-round pick out of New Hampshire who’s having a strong training camp.
“I’d like us to set the tone,” Raiders coach Antonio Pierce said of what he hoped to get out of the team wearing pads for the first time before practice. “I want us to be a heavy-handed team… We’ll have another chance to throw later on, but I’d really like to see our running backs hit that hole full speed. I’d love to see our linebackers come down from the second level and then our safeties fit. I pretty much know what to expect from the O-line, D-line. It’s going to be a bloodbath up front.”
The trenches weren’t the only place where there was a battle, though the diminished passing portion of practice continued to go more in the defense’s favor. After decent debuts, Raider quarterbacks Aidan O’Connell and Gardner Minshew have mostly struggled in five consecutive practices.
The competition for the starting job is still “status quo,” in Pierce’s words, with neither candidate having done anything “clear and evident” to prove they should have the job.
The defensive backfield was its own biggest opponent Tuesday, as both first-team cornerbacks Jack Jones and Jakorian Bennett dropped potential interceptions off O’Connell. The secondary also drew a handful of penalties.
Jones loudly protested one to the official and implored him to call it both ways when receiver Jakobi Meyers stopped walking back to the huddle and looked back.
For a split second, it looked like he may get facemask-to-facemask with Jones and spark the first skirmish of training camp. But instead, Meyers just extended his hand and the two encouraged each other.
“I love it, even when it’s trash talk,” Pierce said. “At some point, you’ve got to stop it and you’ve got to line up and play again the next snap, but I think it’s good. It’s that competitive spirit we’re looking for. We’ll do that out here on the grass and then when we get on the bus and go back to the hotel, we’re teammates again.”
Pierce has said the Raiders’ first remote training camp since moving to Las Vegas was motivated as much about team building as escaping the heat. So far, his expectations have been exceeded.
Pierce spoke of how great it’s been to have everyone together off the field too. An early highlight shared together came Friday when celebrity chef, UNLV grad and diehard Raiders fan Guy Fieri cooked for the whole team to cap the first week of practices.
Munford said he genuinely liked everyone on the Raiders’ roster — even if he might have better reason to be annoyed with a teammate than anyone else. Crosby rivals, if not surpasses, Wilkins as the loudest mouth on the team and lines up opposite Munford virtually every play.
The perennial Pro Bowler isn’t shy when he gets the best of the third-year offensive line. Munford thought it was all a little bit unfair when the team wasn’t practicing in pads, but he could hit Crosby more aggressively starting Tuesday to get his own point across.
“Now it’s our turn to chirp too because when we get a big run, what are they going to say now,” he said. “It was good back and forth, playful stuff. We all love each other at the end of the day.”
With the way the defense has repeatedly antagonized the offense, it’s hard not to expect tempers to flare at some point for an old-fashioned training camp fight. But it hasn’t come close to happening so far with Pierce saying the Raiders are, “building something special,” with their camaraderie.
No matter how close everyone gets, don’t expect the defense to dial down its antics.
“We definitely talk a lot of smack,” linebacker Divine Deablo said. “That gets to (the offense) and they try to bring us back to it. I love it. We’re making each other better.”
Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or