Pagano stressing communication
You can never have enough. Especially when your defense gave up a league-high 61 plays of 20 yards or more.
“He is an extra genius mind,” cornerback David Amerson said of new assistant coach
John Pagano. “Someone who brings a different outlook than what we have had the last two years. A whole ’nother mindset. And that’s good for us.”
Pagano, the former defensive coordinator of the Chargers, is working mainly with the secondary but as the assistant head coach, he has his hands in everywhere, assisting head coach Jack Del Rio and coordinator Ken Norton Jr. Pagano’s main task: improving the communication between defensive backs, and then between them and the rest of the defense.
Pagano has been working especially closely with safety
Karl Joseph, and on improving the secondary’s nonverbal communication.
“This is where it starts, this is where you get familiar with the lingo, familiar with the hand signals,” Amerson said.
“When you’re in the stadium, sometimes you can’t hear people making calls, so you’ve got to have hand signals, so everybody is seeing the same thing and on the same page.”
And this is no better competition to practice against than
Derek Carr and the league’s sixth-ranked offense — which got even better with the offseason additions of running back Marshawn Lynch, tight end Jared Cook and receiver Cordarrelle Patterson.
“I think they’re gonna be one of the best offenses in this league,” Amerson said, “and I think us as a defense, we know that we’ve got to step up to the plate. Especially us as a secondary because, like I said, we’re playing against some top-notch receivers and topnotch quarterbacks in this league, and it’s gonna be up to us.”
The Raiders were off Wednesday and return to the training-camp practice field in Napa on Thursday.
Roberts stronger: Seth Roberts, 26, had a career-high 38 receptions last season, five of them touchdowns, but also had a 6.5 percent drop rate, the fourth-highest among NFL receivers. Oakland’s No. 3 receiver had a legitimate excuse, receivers coach Rob Moore said.
“He’s still developing and I think for him, people don’t understand that he had to play with a double hernia,” Moore told the Bay Area News Group. “The problem he had last year, he got that fixed this offseason. I think he’ll have a lot more core strength and the balls won’t get ripped away from him as much as they did in the past.
“He’s just going to continue to grow because he’s a kid that works extremely hard as well.”