Much has changed for the Raiders' organization in the five years since the team relocated from Oakland to Las Vegas. Not only did the organization shift to a new city and stadium for the regular season, but they also moved their long-standing offseason home from California to Nevada.
Last year, then-head coach Antonio Pierce remedied this fact by moving training camp to Costa Mesa, California, but the team ran into issues because they practiced in a rival team's market. Now, new head coach Pete Carroll is saying that the team will return to Napa, California for training camp this year, according to Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
While this news is not official, according to The Athletic's Vic Tafur, it is hard to imagine that the team will face any obstacles in moving their training camp back to Napa. After all, the team held their offseason program here from 1996-2019.
The summers are thought to be too hot in Las Vegas to get any meaningful work done during the day, and southern California has become too populated with local teams for Las Vegas to gain any rights in the area. Last summer, Raiders fans were not allowed to attend the camp and the team could not promote the fact that they were there.
Carroll may have spoken out of turn when he said this, but the prospect of camp returning to Napa is exciting for both the players and the fan base alike. The Raiders' new regime may do things differently than those before them, but that may not be such a bad thing.
