HENDERSON, Nev.—After a few days where the Las Vegas Raiders offense was able to make plays at will, the defense not only showed resistance on Sunday, but they were outright flying around the practice field at Intermountain Healthcare Performance Center.
The Raiders defense was able to sustain pressure throughout the day, with the secondary being one of the more impressive groups of the morning. While getting into the backfield helped with defensive linemen JJ Pegues and Keyron Crawford making plays to lead to losses of yards, cornerbacks such as Decamerion Richardson and Jermod McCoy were able to record impressive pass breakups. The play of the day, however, came from second-year defensive back Greedy Vance, who read a pass from Fernando Mendoza for the first interception of training came from the first overall pick.
“He read his keys the right way. He was in the right spot,” diagnosed Raiders safeties coach Matt Robinson about Vance’s play.
“Throughout camp, he’s been doing a great job playing both nickel and safety and [I’m] excited to see where he’s at.”
It was a day that a young secondary has been hungry for. While a few veterans remain, this year’s Raiders featured four drafted rookies in the defensive backfield, as well as a slew of undrafted rookies hoping to prove themselves.
“We have a deep room and expect a lot of guys that are competing to play,” said Robinson. “It’s a challenge to work them in, but…come game time in the preseason, let’s see what they can do when the bullets are flying and the lights are on. Let’s see who shows up.”
Equally as eager to make positive impressions is the special teams unit, consisting of longtime punter AJ Cole and a slew of new faces and coaches, the latter of which is lead by Joe DeCamillis. Although it is his first season with the Silver and Black, DeCamillis is ready to tackle his 35th NFL season with this group.
“The way that we get it across to our players is we call it one down,” explained DeCamillis about the attention to detail in his coaching. “In the kicking game, you only have one down to get it right. It’s either fourth down, which obviously bad things can happen if you don’t execute, and then on kickoff return, you only have one play. There’s no second or third down to get it right, so we try to get that across to our guys as much as we can.”
With Cole being the only player with tenure in Las Vegas, he has emerged as the de facto leader of the special teams group. Despite all of the moving parts around him, Cole has so far proven up for the challenge. He and new kicker Matt Gay do have a connection from their shared time together at the 2019 East-West Shrine Bowl, and was more than happy to report on the collaborative effort taking place between everyone to make life easier on all of them.
“In some ways, it’s different on the personal level,” said Cole about his new role.
“In the past, when you have specialists who are around your age or even older than you, they’re not necessarily asking for advice the same way. You’re talking through things versus now that you have younger specialists. Me and Matt are the same year, but all the other specialists in the room career-wise and age-wise are younger than me. I think those questions are a little bit different and it’s been a really fun experience to go through that.”
Along with his prior relationship with Cole, Gay worked with DeCamillis for two seasons (2021-22) with the Los Angeles Rams. Fittingly enough, those two seasons have been Gay’s best at the NFL level, crossing the 90 percent field goal success rate in both years.
So far, Gay has shown improved power and has hit the ball well when given the opportunity. Although he did miss a field goal in a situational drill during the team period, that was more on the offensive line setting them back with a pair of holds. Regardless, the veteran kicker has pushed to earn his opportunity with Las Vegas.
“I’m hitting the ball really well right now,” said Gay when asked to judge his performance in training camp so far.
“I’m really pleased with how I’m hitting it right now. Getting back with Joe, we get each other pretty well, and I think we vibe off each other really well. He kind of knows what I need. My goals for training camp is to get back to feeling like my true self, get back to hitting the ball, get back to not thinking too much.”
Meanwhile, Matsuzawa has emerged as the X-factor in the special teams race. Despite his unorthodox journey to the NFL, the undrafted rookie has drawn rave reviews so far this training camp. Matsuzawa, who hit nearly 87 percent of his field goals in three seasons at the University of Hawaii, has continued to impress at the NFL level, pushing the veteran Gay.
“Matt is an amazing guy and I’m so happy to work with him,” said Matsuzawa about his fellow kicker. “He’s a great mentor and I’m so grateful to have a veteran kicker like him.”
DeCamillis has been impressed with Matsuzawa, even to the point where the special teams coordinator floated the idea of him sticking with the Raiders through the NFL’s International Pathway Program. Should the Raiders choose to go that route, Matsuzawa would continue to develop on their practice squad without counting against the 16-player maximum, assuming he does not beat Gay outright and takes the kicker job himself.
With pads close to coming on and the practices only getting more physical, the Raiders’ defense and special teams now have some momentum to build off of as preseason rapidly approaches.