Raiders Lockout Practice: Richard Seymour Sets the Tone Early

The first day of the Oakland Raiders NFL lockout players' workouts is in the books. All of the information below is from reports originally by Steve Wyche NFL.com (interview video on this link), Ben Beitzel Associated Press, Jerry McDonald San Jose Mercury News.

There was not an official roster of attendees present. But the following players were all reported to be present: Jason Campbell, Kyle Boller, Darren McFadden, Darrius Heyward-Bey, Jacoby Ford, Louis Murphy, Jared Veldheer and Bruce Campbell, Rock Cartwright, Rolando McClain, Tommy Kelly, Nick Miller, Taiwan Jones and Richard Gordon.

The turnout was enough to impress even the enemy. The Atlanta Falcons practiced on the same high school field after the Raiders. Falcons QB, Matt Ryan :

It was impressive to see how many guys that they had down here.

Jason Campbell was pleased with the attendance.

All of the guys who could be here—(except for) guys that are not restricted or unrestricted—are here. You can't ask for much more than that.

Could it be that Chaz Schilens made it? Since there were no reported injuries...I assume he sat this one out.. Jump over for more....

It was mentioned that Richard Seymour was the only defensive lineman until Tommy Kelly arrived late, and Seymour was reportedly doing enough work for the group.

Seymour is demanding his teammates put in the work, and he started off by setting the bar. Seymour was reportedly busting his way through a tough "lung-expanding, quad burning" workout. His example is not lost upon his teammates. This is from Wyche:

When I joked with McClain that he needed to call in a few more linebackers so he could take a break, he pointed at Seymour and without a word, made his point abundantly clear.

Along with the strength and conditioning training players did positional drills, and some 7-on-7 that was described as two hand touch. Seymour made sure everyone knew why they were there when he huddled the team before activities started, and reminded everyone that they were non-contact drills. They were there to get better not get hurt.

They apparently got into the playbook, but it was more about just re-familiarizing themselves with the feel for the game. Here is Rolando McClain on the subject:

We didn’t really work in depth on plays. It’s more just for a feel of the game. Just see some plays and get the feel of football instead of the feel of vacation for the last four months. Just to get back in a football-type environment.

It was mentioned that McClain was running the defensive sets. While Campbell took most of the snaps at QB. Beitzel had this little gem for us:

He made some sharp throws, and Murphy made a nice catch along the sideline. The work between Campbell and his receivers at his home in Washington, D.C., showed.

I don't think we could hope for a better piece of on field news during the nature of these workouts than that. It was only two years ago that the Raiders passing offense was described as many, many things, and a professional passing offense was not one of them.

By the sounds of it, one of those crisp passes may have gone to the man DVD was guarding. DVD is quickly learning what we already knew: the Raiders are fast. DVD:

It was good to see the guys, to put names with faces and get the vibe from different guys. There was a learning curve, but it was pretty much man (coverage) like we did at Miami. But I had to get up to game speed. You have fast guys like Heyward-Bey, Jacoby Ford, Louis Murphy. All those guys can run so I was just learning how those guys run routes.

One of the more interesting football related notes, pointed out by S Jay Bruin in the earlier practice thread,  Bruce Campbell was lining up at right tackle. Of course, he was probably the only guy there to do that. I didn't hear about Joe Barksdale being present. However, Campbell's (Bruce) comment led me to believe there was at least a little more to it:

I am going to practice both positions, but I am going to practice more so at tackle because I haven’t done it in a year.

Sounds to me as if the coaches have told Campbell he was going to get some time at tackle this year.