Raiders to Host Patriots in Joint Practices This Week
The Las Vegas Raiders will get an up close look at their final preseason opponent, as the New England Patriots come to Sin City to join them during practice.
In a short week, the Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels will have a coaching reunion as he welcomes his former head coach, Bill Belichick and the rest of the Patriots to Las Vegas.
Both teams found themselves leaving players behind in their week two preseason game, but as the preseason nears the end, both teams are expecting to have everyone accounted for during practice.
“I expect probably all of our players to be available this week,” Belichick said. “With maybe the exception of [Kristian] Wilkerson. We'll see what happens, unless somebody walks in here with something today, but I think we should be pretty close with everybody. Hopefully. We'll see how it goes.”
Starting Tuesday, both teams will start their two joint practices in Henderson, Nev.
“These joint practices, I mean, these are great opportunities for us to compete against somebody else. I'm sure all of our guys are tired of doing one on one against each other. They all know each other very well. They've seen the routes, they've seen the rushes, they've seen the pass protection sets, so they kind of know what to expect,” said McDaniels.
“So this is going to give our team an opportunity to compete against somebody new, to work our fundamentals and techniques against a different scheme.”
McDaniels mentioned he is not going to do a full scouting report on the Patriots, not like he needs to, but will allow game time situations to determine how the Raiders will practice.
“Whatever happens on the field, happens. So it's going to test our ability to communicate on the field and solve problems without really a lot of preparation, which is a great opportunity for us to test where we're at on that,” added McDaniels.
“Just to go out and really test where we're at in terms of our overall ability as a unit to perform, whether it's a special team unit defensively offensively, we're going to we're going to hit a lot of different situations in the next couple of days here should be an opportunity for us to really improve our football team and that's what we're looking forward to doing.”
Tuesday afternoon will also mark the deadline of team’s trimming down their roster to the 80-player limit.
The Raiders will wrap up the preseason this Friday at 5:25 p.m. (PDT) at Allegiant Stadium against the Pat’s, and meet again during the regular season (Week 15).
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