All season, we’ve heard the Raiders talk about Johnathan Abram as bringing much needed ‘juice’ to the team. With no fans in the stands, the team must create its own energy and Abram has plenty of that.
His defensive backs coach certainly loves having him back in the secondary after Abram missed most of last season.
“He’s better than advertised,” said defensive back coach Jim O’Neill Wednesday. “I love him. He’s exactly what this team needed. We wanted an alpha dog in the back end that was going to make the middle of the field a scary place. To fly around and be a relentless player.”
Abram’s playing style is great for the aggressiveness of the defense. But there are a couple of problems with that. The first reared its head in Abram’s first game as a pro last season — injury risk.
We saw only a handful of snaps with a healthy Abram before injuring his shoulder. Then he was lost for the rest of his rookie campaign.
Now he must be very wary of taking care of his body while being the same attacking ‘scary’ player the Raiders need him to be. He says that isn’t a problem for him.
“I’ve done a really good job of putting together a recovery regiment each day for every day of the week,” Abram said last week. “I’m doing a really good job of taking care of my body, so it allows me to play the game the way I play it. At the same time, just being a lot smarter with the shots I’ve taken and stuff like that. That’s about it.”
That’s an interesting statement to make just over a week after playing a brutally bad game in New England in which he was clearly affected by a banged-up shoulder.
Some of his tackle attempts in that game were cringe-worthy. But that game was more the exception for Abram, who will occasionally miss tackles, but more often connects on his big hits. It’s a learning curve for Abram to know when he can light up a defender and when he cannot.
“Everybody uses the cliche ‘all gas, no brakes’,” O’Neill added. “I think that John is one of those players who is truly all gas, no brakes. Now in my experience in this league, it’s a lot easier to slow guys down than it is to speed ’em up. And I think as John plays more and more he’s going to understand those situations where he can take a shot or when he’s got to come under control and just secure a good tackle or come under control and keep leverage in coverage. For him, being only six games into his NFL career, I know skill players on the other side of the line of scrimmage, they’re finding him pre-snap because they want to know where he is.”
Abram’s 28 combined tackles leads the Raiders defense after five weeks. He also has an interception and his three pass breakups are second behind Trayvon Mullen (five).
Equally important is he gets in the heads of his opponents. Whether it’s with his play or his mouth. And, as O’Neill pointed out, that’s exactly what this Raiders defense needed.
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