Yeah.

And third...

You know, we had third and Renfrow before, so okay, third and Bech, and do it again, otra vez.

So if, if he can, uh, get loose and, and, uh, pick up those short yardage, uh, pickups that, that need to happen on third down, and, and Michael Mayer is moving the tr- the chains and, and Trey Tucker is available for an explosive play or two, and, and the running back, whether that's Ashton Jeanty or Mike Washington Jr. is moving the chains, then, then that's the recipe for success.

And, and really, if, if you're trying to figure out what this Raider offense wants to look like, just pull up, uh, last year's Seattle Seahawks offense because people keep forgetting that, you know, who that offensive coordinator was, who the, who drew up that blueprint, and what they did.

Now, obviously, there's different, um, skill position players, there's different, uh, personnel at his disposal.

But, uh, the main idea, I think if you want to get a, a shot at or a thought of what it's gonna look like, just take a look at the Seahawks last season.

Yeah

As far as the Raiders go, just overall, what's the expectation level with all the movement in the offseason and a brand-new coach and Max comes back? What do people expect?

They expect them to be competitive.

They expect them to be fun, and last year was neither.

It was neither competitive nor was it fun.

They peaked.

in the the season opener and they you know and at the end of the day i guess you could put it on the wall that hey we beat the afc champs if you're the raiders right because they beat the patriots in the season opener and gino uh smith gino peaked in that game and then everything was just kind of downhill uncle pete didn't work out um as the happy-go-lucky uncle pete he was a different kind of a guy as a coach and things just didn't work out now the difference is and i know you could say this about any team right at this time of year as mark davis like to say we're undefeated blah blah blah but everybody not only is on the same page but they're pulling in the same direction.

And you never really felt that last year with so many different personalities from Pete Carroll to a brand-new first-time-ever GM in John Spytek to Chip Kelly being the offensive coordinator to Tom Brady getting his feet wet as a minority owner and yet having some say on the football side of things.

What was the scare factor with Genting, and what can that backfield do with both of those guys back there?

[laughs]

Because they beat the Patriots in the season opener, and Gino, uh, Smith, Gino peaked in that game, and then everything was just kinda downhill.

Uncle Pete didn't work out, um, as the happy-go-lucky Uncle Pete.

He was a different kind of a guy as a coach, and things just didn't work out.

Now, the difference is, and I know you could say this about any team, right? At this time of year, as Mark Davis likes to say, "We're undefeated," blah, blah, blah.

But everybody not only is on the same page, but they're pulling in the same direction, and you never really felt that last year with so many different personalities from Pete Carroll to a brand new first-time-ever GM in John Spytek, to Chip Kelly being the offensive coordinator, to Tom Brady, uh, you know, getting his feet weight, his feet wet as, as a minority owner and yet having some say on the football side of things.

This year, everybody's...

[laughs]

As far as the Raiders go, just overall, what's the expectation level with all the movement in the offseason and a brand new coach and Max comes back? What do people expect?

They expect them to be competitive.

They expect them to be fun.

And last year was neither.

It was neither competitive nor was it fun.

They peaked.

in the season opener.

What was the scare factor with Genting, and what can that backfield do with both of those guys back there?

Right.

Because at one point during training camp, I sat and I did a column, it's on raiders.com, and it's funny because, you know, after covering the team for everybody from the Sacramento Bee to Comcast SportsNet to ESPN from 2005 through 2025, um, now I'm on the other side of the curtain, so to speak, and, and I get a little bit more, um, behind the scenes, so to speak.

So I was able to do a story with Mark Davis.

We sat and watched a training camp practice together, and in watching the team go through it and getting his take on everything, it was interesting 'cause he really likes all three quarterbacks.

In his mind, the Raiders have three legitimate starting NFL quarterbacks, and that's counting AOC as well, uh, Aiden O'Connor.

So as he's breaking it down, he's talking about how Kirk Cousins, you know, he's not fast, he's not flashy, his arm's not the strongest, and his, his throws kinda have a weird arc to it.

And he says, "But all I see is him completing passes and guys getting open." And that's when he whispered, "Maybe it's the Tom Brady effect." Because that's what you thought of Tom Brady.

[laughs]

But how would you approach this one? Knowing what you know about this team at this stage of the game, seeing how they put some ones out there in preseason game number two, what would your approach be to this one? How would you do it?

I would just try to get out of dodge.

Just, you know, you're going to play a bunch of guys out there that are roster fringe roster guys.

You got to really work on your special team to see who's going to do that.

I would hesitate to even put a quality backup and that sounds terrible.

Right.

And I don't mean if that was meant to disparage anybody, but do you really want to put Fernando Mendoza out there? with a third string offensive line against a guy that's trying to make a roster and make a name for himself.

So, I mean, is there a guy that you have your eye on or a couple of guys that you think, hey, they might be the leaders in the clubhouse in the wide receiver room?

into another spot right into another spot in college that's a man good good yeah that's they grow up fast let's just put it like that yeah they grow up really fast and speaking of growing up fast this raiders offensive line needs to grow up fast right and going up against a team like the texans you know how strong their defense is they got pressure from everywhere right i'm not surprised because i know that the raiders offensive line is still work in progress but How much do you think that that will give valuable film to Rick Dennison to say, okay, this is where we are, and that's who we need to be able to stop and just kind of build off of that?

Well, I don't think it can't get any better than that because it is that controlled chaos.

It is that controlled environment.

You're going up against the defense that, you know, if you were to make some dark horse predictions right now, you could say Texans ran Super Bowl.

So why not test yourself against the best in this situation after you've gone against your own guys forever and you're getting used to each other? That's the thing about training camp is that when you're going against yourselves, you start to figure out your own tendencies.

It's time to break out of that and go and do that.

So like I mentioned, going against somebody that's really, really good and really, really different, that's only going to help you, especially in this situation.

Would that be an observation that you think is accurate?

Yes.

Especially breaking down the X's and O's of, of playing offensive line.

And we ended the interview, a little spoiler alert here, but I asked him, I said, "As an offensive lineman, what is the most satisfying thing for you? Is it, you know, springing a running back open? Is it protecting the quarterback long enough for, for a long pass for a score? Is it a pancake block?" Before I could even finish saying pancake block, "Pancake block." [laughs] He just described what it's like.

So then we went from there, and throughout the pod he just kind of broke down the line as to what he's seen, what needs to happen, uh, from his, from his, um, you know, vantage point.

It's, it's a very young line with a couple of stalwarts there at center and at left tackle, and now it's just...

It's, it's a chemistry experiment, is the, the way he put it.

When you're putting an offensive line together, it's a chemistry experiment.

Yep, yep.

It just seems like his attention to detail and his want to be great is definitely there.

Yeah, and then that's what he mentioned.

I mentioned Kirk and Aiden being in the room, and he was quick to bring up Jacob Clark, another rookie that's in camp and in the room with him too.

So when you have those four in there, everything about him is about the attention to detail.

And it even goes back to him wanting Tom Flores' blessing to wear number 15.

And I know a million times I know the Raiders don't retire numbers, and many people have worn 15, especially like Jeff Hostetler.

But it meant something to him because he knows the history.

is there a chance that the Raiders could be overlooked right now? Like, do you expect them to outperform the expectations? And the reason I brought this up is former Raider, Gerald McCoy was on with the Rich Eisen show and Rich Eisen in general, and just said that he feels like that they could be a sleeper team this year, that not a lot of expectations, but they could be playing a little bit bigger and a little bit better than most people expect.

But, I mean, is there a couple position groups that you might look at that think maybe a veteran could help out and, you know, at least provide some good depth before training camp or even a few weeks into it?

Not if it's going to be somebody that's going to take a spotlight.

And again, this is not a team that's one player away, in my opinion.

And this is just me speaking.

This is not Raiders speaking.

This is me.

This is not a team that's one player away.

But what do you have coming up next so that we can be paid attention to before we get ourselves in all kinds of trouble?

What are your thoughts on Trey and Stukes, who they drafted in the second round?

Yeah, it's interesting, right? I mean, you draft somebody that high, that's supposed to be a starter.

That's supposed to be a contributor right away.

And on the defensive side of the ball, I mean, you know, how do you contribute defensively? If you're not getting picks, if you're not getting sacks, there's a lot of things you can do.

And I've been listening to the show since you went on at 2 o'clock, and I want to make sure that when you were at the M that that was not you up on top of the pole twerking like the ladies today at the Knicks parade.

But I just wanted to make sure that was not you because my son saw the TikTok of it and said, no, that's not you.

That's somebody else.

But how do you view Bash and Thornton? How do they, I guess, take that next step in year two? Because I think they're going to be needed for this offense to take a step forward.

now obviously we haven't seen any games we haven't seen training camp all we've been privy to is what we've seen we'll be out there for OTAs tomorrow but what kind of vision or what kind of role do you envision I guess for Trey Tucker under Clint Kubiak

Yeah, a lot of everything.

And it was funny because I did, you know, we were in the room and I asked Clint Kubiak, I said, I know it's not fair to ask you to compare guys on the roster to guys that you've coached before, but is there somebody that he reminds you of? And a little smile crossed his face.

You don't see a lot of that from Clint.

And he said, yes, but it's not fair, and I'm not going to tell you who it is.

So in the podcast, again, spoiler alert, I asked him, I said, so which former Seahawks tapes are you watching? Who do you remind Coach Kubiak of? And why is it Rashid Shaheed? He started cracking up, but he also talked about other players that he was watching, and he's been watching throughout.

And I'll leave that for the viewer to watch or to listen.

What kind of role do you envision with him as another guy that can stretch the field similar to Trey Tucker?