One of the Raiders’ biggest position battles going into training camp was at the cornerback position across from Eric Stokes, and there were some who thought rookie Jermod McCoy might seize the job by the end of preseason.
So far, though, it has been Darien Porter taking the majority of first-team reps, and The Athletic’s Ted Nguyen said on Wednesday that Porter will most likely be at the top of the cornerback depth chart to start the season.
“I think Darien Porter is pretty much the starter, and this is a competition like the guard position, it’s going to go on into the season,” Nguyen said on the Just Win podcast.
“The thing that’s tough for McCoy is he’s on a snap count. The first week was exactly 30 snaps. The second week was exactly 30 snaps, so they are still monitoring [his knee] pretty closely. There’s definitely some signs of him playing well and being sticky in coverage, but it’s just going to be kind of a slow developing thing with him.”
Nguyen’s guest on the podcast was The Athletic’s Sam Warren, and Warren said Porter has taken more than just the “majority” of first-team reps since last week.
He has essentially taken every meaningful rep for the last week.
“Today was the first day, I think since they returned from Houston, that we saw somebody else [with the first team] outside of Darien,” Warren added.
“Hezekiah [Masses] was only in there for kind of like a walk-through sort of goal line redzone period, so it wasn’t even like he was getting consistent reps in team or anything like that. So, I think Darien has kind of staked his claim over that role.”
Pro Football Focus has not been high on the Raiders second-year CB
Porter hasn’t been outstanding in 21 preseason snaps, but Pro Football Focus has him graded as the worst defensive player on the roster in the first two games (which seems ridiculous).
According to PFF, Porter has not tackled well and has given up completions on two of his three targets. The reception that stood out was the touchdown he gave up on a perfect throw to Marvin Harrison Jr. in the endzone.
What doesn’t get calculated by PFF, apparently, is that Porter was inches away from making a deflection on the Harrison touchdown. A perfect pass beat good coverage.
As Nguyen and Warren both pointed out, the competition at cornerback probably won’t end anytime soon, but for now the coaches seem to have settled on Porter.
x: @raidersbeat
Get Jordan Meredith off this team and go sign Mekhi Becton to a one year prove it deal. Protecting Mendoza at all costs needs to be priority #1.
Also, what is going on with Decamerion Richardson?
He sux.
All the corners look pretty weak. It didn’t help the officials pulled flags egregiously against us in both games.
They always do and it never stops. How much more obvious can they make it that the NFL hates the Raiders? Refs missed two pass interference calls that should have been on Houston but they let Houston get away with it while they call every minor thing on the Raiders.
Then when the public sees things like this going on, the NFL wonders why people think the league is scripted and/or fixed.