The Raiders Found Their NEXT OFFENSIVE STAR *Says Antonio Pierce*

Okay, look, you go into a new season and there are people that you expect to play a certain way. You go and sign a Christian Wilkins or you have people like Max Crosby and Devonta Adams who you know are stars. You have first-round picks like Brock Bowers. You have people like Zamir White working hard in the offseason knowing damn well he's probably going to be the starting running back. And you expect all these guys to show up and show out in minicamp. And then there are guys like Jacoby Myers who have been said to take a pretty decent leap from last year to this year. And last year he was pretty dang good as well. So there are players that you expect to perform well and elevate themselves. They are veterans. They are good players. They are good guys. But the way you take the next step is to get guys to take leaps that you did not expect to take. And real quick, before I get into what Antonio Pierce said about these guys taking big leaps I need you to do one thing for me if you are new to the channel we have 7,000 subscribers we're trying to get to 10 before the new league year if you could be so kind as to consider hitting that sub button we are so so close we want to get to 10,000 subscribers before week one Chargers at Raiders that would be a monumental moment in the history of this channel and you can be a part of it hit that subscribe button it is so free and so easy if you like what you see, smash it, let's get to 10K. And Antonio Pierce named two people that took significant leaps from last year to this year that could absolutely transform how we are perceived in the National Football League. The first person he talked about was Jacoby Myers. That is a very impressive thing to hear considering Jacoby Myers is a veteran of the league. You don't see veterans take big leaps like that. Hopefully we see maybe Gardner Minshew taking a big leap like that. But that's all good and well, and I'm happy that Jacoby Myers is even better than he was last year. That means that we're going to have a really good receiving core. The other person Antonio Pierce mentioned taking a big leap year one to year two was Trey Tucker. I got to tell you, maybe Aiden O'Connell and Malcolm Koonce and Tyree Wilson, those would be the three I would probably want to hear taking a leap before Trey Tucker. But then after those three guys, I don't know if there's anyone better that we could have heard take a big sophomore leap. Because if you think about how our offense is currently constructed, it is 12 personnel, smash mouth, people like Davante and Jacoby on the outsides, right? We are missing that kind of slot, take the top off the defense weapon. And last year, Trey Tucker showed some flashes. He showed a little Henry Ruggs. If you remember Henry Ruggs' first year, he didn't blow the doors off the place, but he made a few plays. And Trey Tucker did the same. His main issue was kind of holding onto the football. He had a little bobble problem. If he's to be said and to be seen as taking a big leap, that means we have a legitimate Tyreek Hill type weapon that we can develop into something special one day. If he can come in here and take a big leap, that could change our offense. Like I said, you can get all the blue chip guys that you want, but you need people to develop that you didn't expect to develop as fast or as well as some of these third round draft picks. Think about our defense. Our defense would not be in the position it was if it wasn't for Max Crosby and Nate Hobbs, late round draft picks, developing beyond their years. And when we took Trey Tucker, we were like, okay, he's a deep threat, but you don't expect guys like that right away to develop into blue chip players. And I'm not saying that he's developing into a Pro Bowl Tyreek Hill type player. But if Antonio Pierce, a guy that does not stutter, does not mince words, if he says it, he believes it. He knows how to motivate guys in the right way. If he's coming out and saying Jacoby Myers took a big leap and Trey Tucker took a big leap, that's huge for us. Imagine if you will, you're playing us, right? It's a second and three. We got Zamir White in the backfield. We're going to pound the rock. We're at the 50-yard line. We've got two tight ends. We've got Devontae and Trey Tucker out there. You give the ball to Zamir White. Oh, it's a flea flicker. He flips it back. You've got Devontae screaming across the middle. How are you going to guard him? You've got Trey Tucker taking it over the top. All the quarterback has to do is hit one of the guys in stride, which isn't that difficult in the National Football League. Now, look, I said this in the video talking about how bad the quarterbacks were and how good the defense was. It was two days of mandatory minicamp without pads. We cannot get too low or too high in evaluating how good or bad our players have played. They have not really got the grasp of the offense yet. They're going up against a skilled defense, blah, blah, blah. I do think, though, hearing offensive guys play well against the great defense that we have is a little more important than hearing the great defense play against a subpar offense. The reason why I'm putting more stock into these reports than I am other reports coming from insiders who just watch practice is because it came out of Antonio Pierce's mouth. I've been saying since day one, when he took the job over, I believe everything he says. He's the only person that said, we're going to go to Kansas City and give them everything we got. And you hear that and you're like, okay, Antonio Pierce, we're going to lose by what, 15? It's going to be like a 20-point game with three minutes to go. We're going to get the field goal, 18-point loss. Oh, we really, no. We went in there and we destroyed them. We kicked their ass. And ever since then, he's gained my 100% trust in everything that he says until proven otherwise. And there are going to be times where he says things that don't happen. He never once said we were going to make the playoffs. He said, we're going to give it our damn this and we're going to try our hardest. That's exactly what we did. And I've never seen a Raiders team that competitive over the end of a stretch. So when he comes into a press conference and he does not stutter, and I'm not just saying stutter in terms of like, he didn't have to think about it. He was like Jacoby Meyers, Trey Tucker. That's huge. And Jacoby Meyers taking another step. A lot of people say that he could be a number one on another team. I never saw it that way. I think he could be a number one on a not great team, a number two on a championship caliber team. But if he's taken leaps from what he did last year, I mean, he played really well last year. If Devontae is Devontae and Jacoby is Jacoby, and then you've got Mayer and Bowers and Trey Tucker. God, I mean, again, I feel like I'm repeating myself and I'm trying not to do this, but all the quarterback has to do is just be average for us to win a lot of games next year. And Trey Tucker being as good as he is talent-wise, that's not enough in this league. You've got to work hard at it. And I'm happy that toward the end of the season, he started to really come on into his own because when you're a young player, I think it's easy to get down on yourself if you've got no production in the first year that you've been in the league. And I think that if you see, okay, I can make some plays in this league. It's kind of like an addiction. You're like, how do I get back to catching that touchdown pass against the Chargers? How do I get back to that end around he had against the Packers? Well, I got to work my absolute tail off. I can't throw this opportunity away. And say what you want about Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler. I'm going to give credit to Dave Ziegler just a little bit here. He seemed to have drafted guys like a Kuntz, like a Trey Tucker, like an Aiden O'Connell that will work as hard as they possibly can to maximize their talent and i think we've taken that from the past regime and added into this one drafting guys like JPJ and Brock Bowers and Lauby these guys want to be great i think that's the key here and if you draft someone that isn't great talent wise but they want to be great they could kind of force themselves into the starting lineup because of how hard they try and look the NBA finals are going on right now and you watch them and you're like wow they're finally giving effort the first time they've given effort this whole season football is not like that every single play of every single game matters from pre-season week one all the way until the Super Bowl and it shows when you draft guys that take leaps from year one to year two the work ethic is everything and i like that that's now becoming the identity of the Raiders, thanks to Antonio Pierce and Tom Telesco, where in the Gruden era and in the McDaniels era, it felt like we're going to out-trick you. We're going to out-play you. We're going to out-scheme you. Sometimes it's not about the scheme. Okay, not everybody can be the Kansas City Chiefs. Sometimes it just has to be, we're going to out-work you. We're going to out-physical you. We're going to out-tough you. Because if you don't have the best talent, you can give the most effort. That's how you win these games. And Trey Tucker taking a big leap from year one to year two shows me that he's a hardworking kid and Antonio Pierce trusts him. That's the big thing here. Like I said, I believe in Antonio Pierce when he says these things. And if he's coming out onto a press conference and immediately giving you Trey Tucker, look out for him. That's very important. There's another guy that I want to talk about real fast. Rob Ryan has come out and said it was no fluke that the second Antonio Pierce's scheme was put into place when he became the interim head coach, that we were the number one scoring defense. He is hyping the defense up. He's talking about Isaiah Polamau. He's talking about Ja'Cory Bennett. He's talking about these young guys that under Antonio Pierce have unlocked another gear. I absolutely love Rob Ryan. I thought he was maybe going to be our coach. It doesn't matter. I digress. And the idea that it seems as though the players have complete trust in AP to the point where they're willing to work as hard as they can to play for him you know it took a while for us to find the right guy and even if we stumbled into it thanks to McDaniels hiring him and McDaniels being absolutely terrible so then he he being Antonio Pierce has to take over I don't care it takes a little bit of luck to be great sometimes I'm so happy that Antonio Pierce has the locker room by the heart by the chest by the fist and he's not letting go he gave the guys a day off and I'm sure they you know they love him that's that's the main takeaway here they love him they want to work hard for him and it shows with how good the defense has been and it shows with the coaches talking about him and Marvin Lewis and Joe Philbin coming in and being able to help him and Tom Coughlin taking his calls and saying AP is going to be a coach in this league for a long time I'm very excited to see not the scheme and not the weapons right we have weapons we have scheme I'm excited to see the identity of the team moving forward and the Trey Tucker thing just made me think about all that how much effort it's going to take for teams to beat us this year I'm very excited to see what happens I want you to comment below let me know your thoughts on the Trey Tucker stuff the Jacoby Myers stuff do you believe in AP what are your thoughts on the weaponry how are we going to use these guys we've still got people like Michael Gallup and Guyton I don't know how we're going to fit all these guys on the field at once we're deep that's for sure please be sure to subscribe it is free afternoons to you I love you guys and I'll see you next time