Breaking Down BIGGEST MOMENTS From Raiders Camp Before Pads!

August 1st. Hilariously insane how fast the time goes by. I just got out of my second showing of Spider-Man Brand New Day. I'm fired up! I'm fired up! Because movies are back! Because football's back! Is the Hall of Fame game this week? I guess if you're watching this in the year 2030 that doesn't matter. But oh boy we've got some stuff to talk about today. Day three of training camp has come and gone. Which means three more practices until full pads go on. Did I say on and on? I was gonna say that's bars but if it was on and on forget the bars. I think they had the spider pads on today. Oh spider. The spider pads on today which means that they were kind of padded but not really. And there were some stuff to talk about. We got reports. We got observations. We got a second year defender that's about to take the leap. I do want to mention if you're watching this when it was uploaded Sunday morning. Sunday morning rain is falling. I'm probably gonna get a copyright strike for that because that was just so good. If you're watching this Sunday morning I'm gonna be live-streaming 3 p.m. Eastern 1 p.m. my time 12 p.m. Pacific Madden playing through the schedule. We're having a pretty good year. Fernando Mendoza looks good. Make sure you catch that live stream. Go set a notification on your phone. Now let's get into it. Raiders day three observations. How is Kirk Cousins looking? This is Las Vegas Review Journal but it is Sam Gordon. It's not Vinny V because Vinny V got upgraded. Got a promotion. Good for Vinny V. Kubiak praises facility condition of players. Las Vegas Raiders coach Clint Kubiak had a lot to account for these last three days. The first three days of training camp. His first training camp as a first year coach. Amid the individual development 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 the collective conditioning is catching his attention. So much for that summertime sun. I'm gonna tell you right now I'm about an hour and a half from Vegas. It's hot. It's real hot. So they're getting their conditioning in. The number one thing these first three days is see what kind of shape we're in Kubiak said Friday morning at Intermountain Health Performance Center. Our training staff has got guys ready to go physically play football. We're 100% healthy. Let's go. It always feels we get caught by the injury bug but we're 100% healthy so far. Keep it up Alex Guerrero. I know what you're doing. You got Tom Brady secret stuff. Keep it going. We're really blessed to have great facilities here and a great training staff that's got our guys to this point. By the way that's Mark Davis is doing getting all the training facilities. I know sometimes it's an unpopular thing to say that he is a good owner but he is a good owner and the reason why we continue to be relevant and get guys that want to coach here and players that want to play here has a lot to do with the training facilities which is thanks to the ownership group which is thanks to Mark. Las Vegas mixed and matches personnel through its first three days of training camp as Kubiak and his coaching staff ramp up for the first excuse me for next week's padded practices. Practicing in underwear as Kubiak referenced when talking about rookie running back Mike Washington jr. doesn't paint the full evaluatory picture for the Raiders who wore smaller thinner spider pads. Rank your Spiderman below. You know I used to have a ranking but this new movie really kind of just threw me for a loop. I don't know we'll get back to that. Spider pads Friday as they emphasize red zone offense and defense. They won't take the practice field Saturday returning Sunday for the first I'm sorry there's a padded practice today? Like today like when this is going up? Returning Sunday for the first three padded practices. I thought it was like six practices before this padded. Okay so you're gonna get two videos on Sunday on a live stream. Okay there you go. Here are some day three observations. Quarterback update. Kirk Cousins decisive and accurate announced as the starting quarterback Thursday Cousins has handled all the first-team reps and displayed decisiveness and accuracy befitting of a 15-year veteran. Pastry connected twice for touchdowns Friday with tight end Brock Bowers in 11-on-11 and 7-on-7. To wideouts Trey Tucker and Jalen Naylor that's gonna be your top three receivers guaranteed as well as Ash and Jenny at running back. He also did the camp's first interception target targeting Tucker during 7-on-7 that quarterback Darion Porter tipped to Taron Johnson love hearing that. Who's repped in the slot and also at safety but his flurry of touchdown passes followed. Wow and he's hardly missed an open pass catcher. Excuse me I'm hiccuping. Sounds like Vikings Kirk Cousins to me but only time will tell. Rookie corners in the mix. We've talked a lot about this but I like this. Rookie fifth-round draftee Hezekiah Masses is getting steady run with the first-team defense splitting reps with Darion Porter opposite top quarterback Eric Stokes. Speaking Thursday defensive coordinator Robbie Leonard said Masses isn't scared to make a play. We talked about that. Fourth-round draftee Jermond McCoy a first-round pick if not for concerns about a lingering effects of a torn ACL is repping at corner with the second and third team and practicing three consecutive days makes for a positive start. By the way they're putting him with the twos and threes to make sure everything's okay. Offensive line Jellian, Colton Miller, Burford, Linderbaum, JPJ, and Glaze have manned the first-team offensive line the last three days. Okay so what I heard about Glaze being a guard wasn't necessarily true but that's also interesting. Trey Zoon, Jordan Meredith, and Caleb Rogers have repped at second-team guard. Zoon repped Friday with the second team at center once snapping the ball several feet of a quarterback from Randall Mendoza's head. Not great Zoon but I've heard from people that Zoon has actually been very good so far. Kicking competition Matt Gay and the Tokyo Toe are competing to kick for the Raiders this fall with the veteran having the early edge. Gay made a 50 plus yarder Thursday through the facilities narrow than normal goalposts. Wow is that cool? That's cool that they didn't that they have narrow than normal and didn't miss a goal Friday as Tokyo Toe miss a 40-ish yarder off the right upright. Not great. Quiddy Pei leaves Friday's practice early. A starter on the edge. Pei walked off the field during the interview period. Kubiak said we're trying to be smart we want to make sure we get him to full pad of days. Totally fine. Koontz replaced Pei with the first-team and beat Glaze on a pass for us that would have resulted in a sack or an incompletion for Cousins. Last word, versatility valued. We talked about this a lot. Kubiak said 90% of the Raiders have haven't established their roles yet and highlighted the importance of positional versatility. Receivers that can play all three positions. Fullbacks that can play tight end and vice versa. DBs that can play corner and safety. That's how you make an NFL roster. Clean Kubiak, man. I like this guy a lot. I mean I really like this guy a lot. Preaching, conditioning, and positional versatility. Those aren't rocket science breaking news revelations. But he seems to have a good head on his shoulders. I'm not gonna come in here and say this feels different than all day. It feels different every year because it's literally different every year. I appreciate that Trey Tucker said in his his press conference that we're just here to get stuff done. We're not here to mess around. No extra stuff like coaches and hamster balls. He didn't mention the hamster balls but we all know what he was referencing. And interesting kicking competition stuff that Matt Gay is beating out Tokyo Toa's of right now. And Kirk Cousins seems to be headed in the right direction here to be the start of week one. I didn't know that Sunday was first pad of practice. Sunday's gonna be a long day for your boy and for all you guys. It's funny I was thinking I used to be obsessed with like editing out little likes and ums and mistakes. Now I'm fully taking water breaks in the middle of these videos and not editing them out. Because you want to see the real me. How about Tonka Hemingway getting some love. Raider's second-year defender is making the leap. Fans were hoping he would. And by the way, not to toot my own horn, but when people are talking about we need to take Caden McDonough. We need a DT. We need a DT. I mentioned Tonka Hemingway was pretty good last year. And if he takes a leap, they're not gonna want to take anybody. And right now it seems like he's taking a little mini leap. We'll call it a hop. And we haven't traded for Vito Vea yet. So until we trade for him, it makes me think that the boys, you know, think someone is stepping up like Levi's talking about. Okay, let's just go right to Tonka. A social media post from Raiders.com reporter Levi Edwards from training camp said that Hemingway was among a group of players on the defensive tier who made plays for the Las Vegas defense in Thursday's practice. Making plays is great, but it matters what kind and against whom they come. I don't know why I thought that. Ryan McFadden noted shortly that Hemingway was heavily involved in the first-team defense for a guy who just made two appearances to play 25 snaps before week 10. Hemingway had been a key factor and topped the group as a big leap for the second-year defender. As fans may remember, Hemingway finally got the shot to prove himself in the year, playing 113 defensive snaps and appearing in the Final Five Contest of 2025. The results speak for themselves. He recorded eight tackles, including five for loss, four sacks, six QB hits, and a batted pass. Sounds like Hemingway's picking up right where he left off in 2026. Even new defensive coordinator Rob Leonard, who was Hemingway's position coach during his working campaign, had great things to say about the young play caller. Maturity, consistency, we love to see it, blah, blah, blah. Luckily for him, Hemingway's resume and strong showing in the spring practices and early parts of the summer program should give him a leg up when contact soon becomes not only allowed, but encouraged. Apparently now, which I didn't know again. Edwards indicated in his column that Hemingway shined both as a run defender and pass rusher during Thursday's session, but he also lumped Hemingway in with incumbent starters Adam Butler, Joe Nolaulu, referring to last year's starter Thomas Booker as someone in contention. This marks a dramatic shift from last season when Booker was a starter and Hemingway was an active. Great coaching by Pete Carroll and the guys. Again, these are reports from just a few training game practices with some spider pads on, so there is no need to sound the alarms, but the sessions aren't unimportant. They mean a great deal. Obviously, the defensive interior will be a rotation, but the more strong and capable bodies the Raiders have, the better. This is the whole point of all these videos. The reports from a few training camp practices, that's all they are, so there's no need to sound the alarms, but these sessions aren't unimportant. They mean a great deal. The reason we talk about padless practice in training camp is, one, because we love talking about the Raiders, so let's talk about it, but two, because it's a map key, if you will. If you look at a map and there's a bunch of little markings and you don't know what the markings are, you go to the map key and you go, oh, this actually means this. So once we see the season unfolding, the season is the map. Okay, where are we going here? What's happening? And when you see Tonka Hemingway explode for ten and a half sacks this year, again, I'm not saying that's gonna happen, but if it did happen, people who weren't watching the beginning of training camp wouldn't have the map key. They wouldn't be like, oh, I know this is happening because we heard about it in training camp. People would just be confused. We talk about things now so that if they come to fruition, we aren't as surprised. They make sense to us because of the buildup of training camp, of padless practice. That's where they begin to put themselves in contention to get first-team reps. Then they put the pads on. If they continue to play well, then they get first-team reps in the preseason. If they continue to play well, all of a sudden, they're the starting defensive tackle with Las Vegas Raiders. So only time will tell if any of this matters, but I'll tell you who does matter. My $5 and $10 patrons and YouTube members who are growing by the second. I gotta make the font smaller and smaller because DMoney310 was gifting out memberships left and right to a bunch of new people and he did that at the Madden livestream. So make sure, again, if you're watching this Sunday morning, rain is falling, get in that Madden livestream. It's a ton of fun. 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