Football is a brotherhood, so it may have felt like a family reunion of sorts for many Raiders coaches and players this week as they saw some familiar faces around their facility while welcoming the New England Patriots for two joint practices.
As it stands, nine current Raiders have ties back to New England, not to mention the numerous members of the coaching staff Head Coach Josh McDaniels brought along with him.
“It was great seeing those guys,” Brandon Bolden, who spent eight seasons in New England, said after Tuesday’s practice.
“I stayed in touch with a lot of them anyway, but it was great to see them in person. I was just telling the younger guys, a lot of those guys I saw come into the league, and that was years ago. We practically grew up together. So, for a lot of those guys, it was not only just former teammates, it’s like family to me.”
But after the smiles, handshakes and hugs, the teams got right to work. For the Raiders, the practices were focused on buckling down, taking chances against a different scheme and building upon what has implemented over Training Camp – a plan Head Coach Josh McDaniels felt was executed well.
“I thought it was two teams that had the right idea about how to go about this and really get the most out of it,” he said Wednesday morning. “I know they came in here with the right mindset of trying to improve as a football team, work on things that they want to work on and compete against somebody different, which is exactly what we tried to do all day yesterday. I think it showed.
“We had a lot of film yesterday to go through. We spent three hours talking about what we learned, and that’s really the benefit of these things.”
It wasn’t just film that was beneficial, observed Chandler Jones, but the mental reps against a different squad as they continue the grind in Vegas’ dry August weather.
“I feel like we got to test our mental toughness. I’ll speak for myself personally; it was hot out there. It was very hot,” Jones said. “For us…
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