The Las Vegas Raiders will have many new faces on the field this upcoming season. After making several changes to the coaching staff and roster, Las Vegas is still assembling its pieces. The Silver and Black are hard at work figuring out who goes where.
Although the Raiders' revamped offense and questionable defense will rightfully garner most of the attention, the team is also working hard on special teams. Special Team Coordinator Tom McMahon recently noted the uptick in participation in his unit.
Oh, yeah, everybody. Everybody wants to be the returner. Everybody wants to cover kicks. Because production is, and it should be, where you make the money in this league," McMahon said.
McMahon noted the number of players the Raiders have had return kicks this offseason.
"I'm going to be up front with you, all these guys have. Every single guy that we put back there on punts, every single guy we put back on kick returns. We're getting probably anywhere from 50 to 60, whatever the deal is for the day. Fifty kicks, we're getting those during the field goal period," McMahon said.
"People can see us. We're shooting jugs during field goal period. Kickoff period, we get probably 25 to 30 reps. Punt periods are the same. So, everybody's been doing a great job and we're really trying to make it hard and catch the hardest balls, rather than the easy, high, hanging balls."
The Raiders have added several talented skill players to their roster this offseason. Las Vegas has plenty of players to choose from to return punts and kicks. McMahon noted that several factors influence the decision of which players will serve as the team's returners.
"I would say 100 percent. And when I say 100 percent, it's not can you field it, it's we have to provide that many practice reps. There's no one that's ever done this, so we're trying to make it as hard as we can. And we're fielding balls now that we couldn't touch five weeks ago," McMahon said.
"We've got guys that got here as rookies, and they couldn't get to a ball at the seven that was a 2.9 hang time, and now they're standing underneath it having a cup of coffee, talking to their folks, and doing a great job with it. So, it's practice. Practice is everything."
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