Going into the season, the weakest position group on the Raiders’ roster was arguably the cornerbacks.
Throughout training camp, former first-round pick Eric Stokes was the one consistent cornerback running with the first team and seemed to have staked his claim as the Raiders’ no. 1 cornerback.
Stokes’ starting job wasn’t challenged by the younger cornerbacks in the preseason, but his unofficial title as the team’s CB1 might be up for grabs considering the way Kyu Blu Kelly has performed in recent weeks.
Despite a nagging hamstring injury, Kelly held off rookie Darien Porter for the starting job opposite Stokes, and on Sunday against the Patriots, it’s fair to say Kelly was the Raiders’ best cornerback on the field.
Pro Football Focus gave Kelly a game grade of 65.2 in week one while Stokes (48.3) and Darnay Holmes (35.2) didn’t show many flashes.
It will be interesting to see how Kelly builds on his first NFL start and if Porter eventually gets into the mix for playing time, it could be Stokes that the coaching staff will consider taking off the field instead of Kelly. That conversation is for another day, but for now it feels like one of the most promising cornerbacks on Pete Carroll’s roster is Kelly and he just turned 24 in May.
Considering the state of the Raiders’ cornerback room a month ago, that’s one of the most significant storylines around the team in the second week of September.
x: @raidersbeat
Wow, just one game in and that was against NE. CB1 out of sheer inept player evaluations. At least wait a few games b4 anointing him as the next best CB of all time seeing how the young man is already running on a bad wheel.