HEDERSON, Nev.–The Las Vegas Raiders and the National Football League still are in the midst of the 2024 season, and while they may take today off for the wonderful Christmas holiday, they still are practicing this week ahead of their trip to the Big Easy to take on the New Orleans Saints.
We were there and we have these three fantastic videos of practice for you watch, and even get a peak at the Christmas spirit inside those practices.
The Raiders, despite a dissapointing 3-12 season are team in which the veterans are leading and refusing to let a team decimated by injury quit.
Something I asked coach Antonio Pierce about. “I’ll tell you what, watching our punt return team go out there and it’s all rookies and Ameer Abdullah. I’m like, ‘God’. Like, legit, all rookies. Okay, you look at our punt team and it’s some rookies, second year players, and I think it was obviously AJ [Cole] and Isaiah [Pola-Mao] and [Divine] Deablo only. You’ve got Ramel [Keyton] on one side as a gunner and 34 [Thomas Harper], so these guys are getting a lot of reps, man. And more importantly, they’ve been competitive in every game. I know you talk about the record and there’s been a lot of losses, but in all those games, those guys have competed their asses off. They’ve been very competitive. They’re learning. There’s been mistakes. There hasn’t been guys that have multiple mistakes week in and week out. For example, last week on special teams, those mistakes were wiped away. We’re not talking about that. So, those are a lot of positives that have gone into playing these younger players. And then, as that role goes on, just like I talked about whith Isaiah [Pola-Mao] on special teams, then you find your role on defense. And that’s like Thomas Harper, for example, right? Special teams and then you look out there and he’s playing a lot on defense for us as well.”…