Thursday the Raiders saw one of their starting cornerbacks return to the practice field, starting his 21-day window for returning from injured reserve.
Mullen suffered a foot injury early in the team’s week four game against the Chargers and was placed on injured reserve on October 9th. He’s been on the shelf the past two months.
Back on November 10 — exactly a month after Mullen was placed on IR — interim head coach Rich Bisaccia said he was targeting this week for Mullen to return to action. That timeline, however, was dependent upon Mullen taking the practice field last week in the lead-up to the Cowboys game on Thanksgiving.
It’s still possible we could see Mullen back in the lineup this week against the Washington Football Team. If so, he would need to be activated on Saturday.
In Mullen’s absence, most of the starts at cornerback across from Casey Hayward have been made by Brandon Facyson, whose performance has been up and down.
Over the Raiders’ first three games — all wins — Mullen and Hayward were playing quite well at the outside cornerback spots with rookie Nate Hobbs at the nickel spot.