Every year, the rookies get a lot of attention. That goes especially for teams that are rebuilding. Such is the case with the Raiders at a few different positions.
Getting the most press in this rookie class have been top pick Henry Ruggs III, fellow first-round pick Damon Arnette, and third-round pick WR Bryan Edwards.
Sometimes it can feel like every one of these players is on the fast track to stardom. The media latches onto every nugget and feeds it to a fan base hungry to hear good things. But Mike Mayock says let’s calm down a little bit on all the hype.
`They’ve gotten a lot of pretty good press. a lot of people are patting them on the butt,” Mayock said of the rookie class over a zoom conference call Tuesday. “You know what? It’s not time to anoint anybody yet. This is what we talked about last year with Josh Jacobs and everybody else. You got to earn it in this league. We don’t have any preseason games to do it, which exaggerates the evaluation process for us. The snapshot of the rookies has been good. But that doesn’t mean anything. They got to compete on special teams, they got get off press coverage in a real game. There’s an awful long way to go before we anoint anybody in this rookie class.”
Perhaps no player in this class has gotten more hype than Bryan Edwards. The No. 81 pick has been filling in for the injured Tyrell Williams in camp and Edwards has looked up to the task.
I have been suitably impressed by Edwards as well. However, I have to remind myself, as we probably all should, that training camp can sometimes be fool’s gold. Flashes in the pan like Juron Criner and Denarius Moore come to mind as camp standouts who never lived up to that hype as NFL players.
As for Ruggs, he has shown he has the separation speed, but the big deep, contested catches haven’t shown up yet. There was even a clip the Raiders put out on twitter in which Arnette stayed with him stride-for-stride and picked off the pass.
Just like the others, we can’t take that Arnette interception as proof he’s ready to be the starter over veteran Prince Amukamara.
As Mayock mentioned, there’s no preseason. That fact could have many teams easing their rookies into their starting lineups, opting for the proven vets until they can see their rookies prove it in a game-time situation.
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