Jack Del Rio on Sio Moore not playing much "Guys get what they earn"

You can call it what you want, but lately Jack Del Rio is sending a message to Sio Moore -- both with his actions and his words. He didn't play Sio Moore on defense at all in the third preseason game, putting him in only on special teams, and in the finale Thursday night, Sio didn't see the field until late in the fourth quarter.

To be exact, Sio Moore took the field with the defense for the first time at the 8:50 mark of the first quarter and played out the remainder of the game -- a total of nine snaps.

After the game, Del Rio was asked about Sio's limited playing time and late arrival into the game, to which he sent the message of the verbal kind:

"Guys pretty much get what they earn," said Del Rio. "In his case, he missed an awful lot of time. He fell behind. I let coaches play (whom) they wanted to play. We got him in. We got him a little time. That's how it went. That's how we see it."

Sio has not had a lot of opportunities this offseason to 'earn' playing time. He had major hip surgery in January and was out much of the offseason. He didn't return to full strength until the second day of training camp and after about a week, he went out with an undisclosed injury for the remainder of camp.

His return to practice was the first day of practices back at the team's facility which was in preparation for the team's third preseason game.

Keep in mind, Sio has been a starting linebacker for the Raiders the past two seasons and has, at times, been one of the better defenders on the team. While he's not a troublemaker, he has always been very outspoken and has had issues with immaturity.

This could be Del Rio's way of getting him to put his head down and going to work. To let his actions speak louder than his words, which has been a difficult proposition considering how he was never one to let his actions catch up to his words.

There are nine days until the Raiders open the season, with as many as five practices between now and then. Sio will have time to earn his reps then.

Or the team could try to trade him. You never know.

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