Raiders Training Camp Day 4: Biggest Winners and Losers

HENDERSON, Nev.—The Las Vegas Raiders held their third full team practice of the 2026 NFL Training Camp, and it was the best of the three so far.

There were several big takeaways from the players' side, from both rookies and veterans, some of which pertained to the team as a whole.

Today, I will take you inside the facility and share my biggest takeaways from what I saw and what took place.

Atonio Mafi, Spencwer Bruford, Kolton Miller | Darrell Craig Harris, On SI

The Team

Several things stood out today that didn’t apply to one player; they holistically impacted the team, and I will share the top three with you.

Joe DeCamillis is the Raiders' superstar special teams coordinator. For a franchise that has built its reputation around grit and special teams fervor, it has been lacking for a long time. Most of it has been either poor coordinators or having terrific coordinators like Rich Bisaccia, but never giving it the prominence in practice time that it deserved.

Kansei Matsuzawa | Darrell Craig Harris, On SI

This is a new era. Klint Kubiak is as committed as any coach I have covered (this is my 27th training camp) in allocating time for coaching and having talented coaching available.

I once covered a team that so undervalued special teams that they didn’t have a special teams coach. Each assistant was assigned a different part of special teams, with no continuity, and once that portion of practice was over, kickers, punters, and long-snappers would leave the field and do what they wanted on their own.

Codny Lindenberg | Darrell Craig Harris, On SI

Today, DeCamillis showed off his acumen for this part of the game by working kickoff and kickoff returner simultaneously and stopping the drill midway, like hitting the pause button on an old-school VCR, and having players freeze in place reviewing their spatial position, feet, hands, location on the field, and where the play was developing. I had never seen it like that and instantly thought it was genius.

I asked Kubiak about it, and even the stoic first-year field general was proud of his coach, as it truly reflects the entire staff he has assembled.

“I got to know Joe as a young coach in Denver. He's the kind of guy that I aspire to be, as prepared as he is, and he's hard on the players, but he loves them up. He's just a very detailed, experienced coach that we're really fortunate to have in our organization.”

AJ Cole, Alex Ward | Darrell Craig Harris, On SI

2. Precision is the name of the Raiders game. Football is a game of inches, and Kubiak is attentive to the inches. I saw him, as well as designated offensive and defensive coaches, correcting the smallest detail, and that attention to detail paid off on both sides of the ball. A TD by Brock Bowers and an interception by Taron Johnson. More on both of those later.

3. Effort is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but the late Don Shula explained it to me best: “Effort takes no help from others; it is on the one thing we all can give, at the level we choose.” As brilliant then as it is today.

_Adian O'Connell | Darrell Craig Harris, On SI

Today, it was on display for coaches and players alike across the field. Whether it was Rob Leonard taking time with a player hoping to make the practice squad, or Klint Kubiak reviewing an issue with Fernando Mendoza. It was guys calling themselves out for mistakes, and in the scorching sun, running past the play when it was over to put in extra work.

I have covered decades of camps, and while some were certainly teams with a better roster, none worked harder than the 2026 Raiders, and that is saying something about the character of the organization GM John Spytek is assembling.

The Veterans

TE Brock Bowers

I am going to have to force myself to stop talking about this Georgia Bulldog, but how can I when, each day in practice, he makes a play, and I honestly expect him to lean up, tear off his jersey, and see the S on his chest for Superman. He is so electric. He made multiple plays today, but let me highlight one. ONE. I am not allowed to report details of the play per NFL rules, but what I can tell you is that as he ran towards the corner of the end zone, the defender had perfect coverage.

Kirk Cousins threw a magnificent ball, not a good ball, a magnificent ball that could have been either caught by Bowers for a TD or batted away. The way it was thrown, I could not have intercepted it. Corners in the NFL must turn around and play the ball to avoid the pass interception flag. What they do is watch the hands of the receiver (in this case, a TE), and when their hands start to rise, they turn and bat the ball away.

It is how it is taught, and that is the correct way. Except when you are playing Superman, and he is wearing the Silver and Black.

Brock Bowers | Darrell Craig Harris, On SI

Bowers waited until the last second and put his hands up just as the ball passed the defender's helmet for the magnificent catch. I have raved for over two years about this young man, and I never saw his hands as fast as they were today. I won’t name the defender; his coverage was perfect, and he was a victim of Raider-on-Raider crime.

What I will say is that the defender shook his head as he walked away, and both sides of the Raiders players oohed and aahed at the talented third-year superstar.

I asked him after practice if he ever looks at the tape, shocked at his skill set. He humbly looked down and did as he always does, deferring to his teammates.

"Not really. We're just out there playing football. Guys make plays a lot. I just go out there and try to make my plays that come to me."

Kubiak chimed in after practice, adding, “Yeah, the ball found him today, but there's guys on our team that offensively especially we're really excited about. Brock [Bowers] and Tre [Tucker] and Jalen [Nailor] and Mike [Washington Jr.] and Ashton [Jeanty], guys that we’ve just got to keep getting more and more reps, getting them comfortable in the system, so we can go get ready to play here in about a month.”

LBs Nakobe Dean, Quay Walker

Today’s report is starting as more of a Georgia Bulldog recruiting testament, but the reality is these two Bulldogs are the big dogs on a team with some talented young linebacker pups, and there is no doubt they are the big dogs.

Agile, hostile, and mobile, these two superstars are not only the big dogs of the linebacker core, but they are also barking and howling. Both men, acting in artistic symmetry, are performing in such tandem that the finest ballet troops would be jealous. Moving their teammates, attacking forward and backward, the two of them back on the same team, next to each other, is football artwork, and despite all of the improvements, it has made the Raiders so much better.

Kubiak doesn’t want to give much away, but his words were telling when discussing his stars.

“On paper, it looks great. Everyone's excited about it. I'm excited about it, but they’ve got to gel, and they've got to come together and now come be Raiders. So, we’re working on that.”

RB Dylan Laube

Overlooked by most fans, and understandably, the pride of the Hamptons is all over the field, making plays from sideline to sideline down the field on special teams and offense. On one play, with no pads, mind you, he welcomed one of his teammates to the Raiders with a nice, friendly block, and if you can’t comprehend sarcasm, he walloped him. This staff loves Laube, and not just for what he does, but how. I asked Kubiak about him, and he said as much.

"Yeah, just another guy that is a solid team player, that is very bright and has made a solid first impression. So, those running backs, like I said in OTAs, their true colors come out when the real football starts. So, still in underwear out there, but I can't wait to watch him and Ashton [Jeanty] and all of our backs, Mike [Washington], keep growing and keep getting good reps."

WR Jalen "Speedy” Nailor

Jalen Nailor | Darrell Craig Harris, On SI

Today was a good day for the WRs, and that has not been the story throughout camp. Speedy showed off his speed for sure today, but he also showed off an ability to move with his QB when forced out of the pocket and made an acrobatic catch for a TD, showing off his amazing hands.

CB Taron Johnson

Having written about him ad nauseam in my position preview, I won’t bloviate any longer, but I will tell you about a terrific interception he had today, and it was not his only great play. Darien Porter had excellent coverage on a WR, and when the ball went off Porter’s helmet, Johnson showed the heads-up and scooped it off for the pick. It was a key play in a key situation and exactly what Rob Leonard was talking about when looking for guys who can get takeaways.

“I mean ball skills. Like you guys all know guys that can catch and guys that can't, right? So, I mean that's a natural thing they can do it and then we track it. Like how much ball production did we have today. And again, I go back to the red blinking meter, if we didn't have any PBUs, batted balls, interceptions, like what do we got to do to fix it."

The Rookies

RB Mike Washington Jr.

The young man had a big day yesterday, and today he took it even further. He is one of those players you can’t wait to see when the pads come on next week. He moves so effortlessly, almost lulling you to sleep, and then explodes with power and speed like a locomotive. On offense, as a blocker, runner, and pass catcher, and on special teams, he was all over the field today and making plays.

He moves so easily, but plays the game like he is angry at the field, and competitive fires in the blistering Nevada heat should come with a warning sign. He is one of several players whose pads coming on next week will help them come down to earth, or explode. Don’t bet against the Razorback; Elon Musk and SpaceX should sign him as he gets ready for takeoff.

CB Hezekiah Masses

Michael Mayer, HezekiahMasses, Jahfari Harvey, Xavian Sore | DARRELL CRAIG HARRIS, ON SI

Well, it wouldn’t be a 2026 Raiders training camp story without a Masses mention. Again, the young man has to prove it in pads, and while each day I tell you that, and each day I vow not to talk about him again, each day he does more to demand our attention.

Today, he showed tremendous ability to flip his hips from showing one coverage, proving it was only masking the real coverage, and he did it seamlessly and with ease. I wrote about him months before the team selected him, and he is making the Raiders' scouting department look incredibly smart. He moves effortlessly, and yet again, I added the caveat that the knock against him was physicality. Next week, if physicality is not an issue, who knows how loud the hype can and will get.

WR Malik Benson

In two of his first three NFL training camp practices, the youngster has made the list of impressive rookies, an accomplishment he makes look easy, but I can assure you it is not. He worked in and out of coverage today, but what stood out was when his QB scrambled, he moved with him like a seasoned vet. Most NFL WRs can’t do that, let alone rookies, and he showed a high football acumen and an adaptive talent that will make his QBs trust him.

QB Fernando Mendoza

The young man on day one showed off his arm, and yesterday he showed his leadership ability by putting teammates in the right spots. Today, he flashed two more qualities that make the NFL executives who praised him, and the Raiders, look smarter every day for making the $57 million investment in him.

On one play, he had a six-inch window to make a throw, and the moment he released the ball, I and others around me said, “No,” and then, with a loud thump, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner delivered the ball precisely through the six-inch window into the TE's gut. Showing pinpoint accuracy with a fastball that would have made Nolan Ryan proud.

Fernando Mendoza | Darrell Craig Harris, On SI

On another play, the young man read the defense disguising the coverage, a read many starters right now in the league would have missed, and rather than being tricked into making a throw to a teammate that appeared open (and was not), he looked away, avoiding a critical mistake on the defense's side of the field, costing his team points.

Kubiak said of his attention to detail, "He's very coachable, all the quarterbacks are. Really, all of our players are. We've got guys that want to get better. So, when they're eager to get better, you better make sure you're on it as a coach. So, we've got to challenge ourselves as coaches and make sure that we're giving them the right coaching points and helping them get to where they want to get to.”

S Tanner Wall

The pride of Arlington, VA, is one of those UDFA hidden gems I spoke about earlier this year, and today he took solid practices from the first two days and put his skill set on film. He isn’t ready today to play on the 53-man roster in the NFL, but he is close. I fully expect him on the practice squad, and when an injury shows itself, he'll get the call-up this year at some point. He belongs in the NFL, and while not ready just this second, he impressed today.

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