Joint practice: QB Carr sees positives, negatives after workout with Rams.
Quarterback Derek Carr and the Raiders’ offense nearly ended Wednesday’s joint practice with the Rams with a flourish.
On the final play of a fullteam scrimmage, Carr appeared to check the call at the line, saw receiver Tyrell Williams streaking downfield and heaved a throw for the end zone. Williams separated from cornerback Nickell RobeyColeman — and dropped Carr’s wellplaced pass.
Carr met Williams on his way back to the line and offered some encouragement. Addressing reporters afterward, Carr took a glasshalffull view of the play.
“We executed, he ran the route perfectly, got the perfect spacing we wanted,” Carr said. “We definitely look at that as a positive. We trust Tyrell and know that he’s made that play a whole bunch of times.”
Overall, it was indicative of the first of two practices with the defending NFC champion Rams in which the Raiders’ offense showed both flashes and lulls.
In 7on7 drills, Carr lofted his first pass of the day to Williams, who was doublecovered in the end zone. Cornerback Aqib Talib came down with the interception. Carr later said he “jacked the ball up just to really set the tone” early in practice.
On his first play of team drills, in a redzone situation, Carr lofted a throw to Williams in the back of the end zone for a touchdown.
“You always want to be crisper, you always want it to be cleaner,” Carr said. “We were able to hit a couple of touchdowns — we had four or five touchdowns — but man, you want six or seven.
“That kind of stuff is going to happen. It’s not alarming to anyone in the meeting room or anything like that. But there is stuff we need to correct off the film and stuff we can do better.”
Head coaches Jon Gruden of Oakland and Sean McVay of Los Angeles had scripted a practice that put both offenses through situations including a runheavy series, a redzone period and a twominute drill. The first series gave Raiders rookie running back Josh Jacobs perhaps his best chance of camp to show his running ability.
Jacobs burst up the middle on the first play of a late series, continuing to take the majority of firstteam reps. Carr said Jacobs, this year’s No. 24 overall pick, showed “a little bit of fieriness.”
Running back Jalen Richard, who had been limited in practice recently by a groin issue, made a onehanded catch near the sideline and had a touchdown catch in the redzone drill. Receiver Ryan Grant made a leaping catch with the secondteam offense and massive right tackle Trent Brown cleared a running lane on another play by pushing a Rams linebacker to the ground.
Brown also committed a false start several plays later. Grant walked off the field late in practice, appearing to favor his lower back, and did not return. Carr had consecutive throws broken up by Talib and overthrew a short out that he called “probably the easiest throw of my career.”