Oakland Raiders: 5 players to watch in training camp

The Oakland Raiders are set to fully kick off training camp in just a few days. Here are five players to watch ahead of the team’s summer practices.

Training camp is just around the corner with the Oakland Raiders rookies the first set to report to Napa on July 23rd and the first full practice set to take place on the 27th.

As of now, we have seen pictures and clips of some of the new additions and the team as a whole during OTA’s and minicamp, but training camp will give us a better look at the depth chart and help answer some questions when it comes to position battles.

On top of that, the team added a lot of talent in free agency as well as in the draft. As such, there will probably be some surprising cuts this offseason when it comes to the positions where the team has good depth.

Raiders fans should be excited to finally see the team as a unit amidst the long offseason, but there are some players who will be more interesting to follow than others for various reasons.

Let’s take a look at five of those players.

1. Lamarcus Joyner

By all accounts, Lamarcus Joyner has a starting spot on the team all but locked down as the nickel corner. A position battle or possible cut is not why Joyner is a player to pay attention to in training camp.

Rather it is because it will be interesting to see how much he plays at free safety — if at all.

Joyner had the best year of his career in 2017 — the year the Rams moved him from primarily playing the nickel to being the starting at free safety. Joyner again played mostly safety in 2018, and his Pro Football Focus grade went down to a 73.1 (from 90.3 in 2017).

However, he still was solid in coverage and didn’t allow a single pass for over 19 yards while he was in coverage. Karl Joseph, who is slated to start at free safety, had a slightly better grade with a 74.5.

But the 25-year-old has always been considered more of a box safety and we don’t know whether he will perform as well in a role where he is given more coverage duties. Joseph does have the athleticism to be a rangy safety, but that is of course not all it takes to be good in coverage.

Joyner is one of the better coverage safeties in the league so it’s fair to question whether using him solely as a nickel corner is a good choice, especially considering that rookie Trayvon Mullen may be able to fill that role and top corner Gareon Conley can definitely move inside at times.

Ideally, Joyner will be used at both spots, as he was drafted into the league because of his versatility as a defender. Letting him make an impact in multiple ways would be the best way to utilize his talents.