Las Vegas Raiders DL Coach Rob Leonard from Mandatory Mini-Camp

HENDERSON0N, Nev.—The Las Vegas Raiders have officially completed their first OTA and Mandatory Mini-camps of the 2024 season, and all attention is turning to the NFL Training Camp to be held in Costa Mesa, California.

Under the guidance of head coach Antonio Pierce, the Silver and Black have united as a team, from the coaching staff to the players. Their collective optimism and confidence are soaring, and the bar for their performance, if possible, has been higher.

Las Vegas Raiders rising star DL Coach Rob Leonard spoke at mandatory mini-camp about what many feel will be the best defensive line in the NFL this season.

You can watch the entire press conference below:

Defensive Line Coach Rob Leonard

Q: Obviously you had a terrific defensive line last year, but do you pinch yourself when you realize you added Christian Wilkins? Coach Leonard: "Every day. It's one of the best groups I've been around in 12 years. It's a lot of fun, but what's crazy is, it's the same group plus him from last year. So, last year I remember what people were saying as well going into the season. John Jenkins and Adam Butler were like camp bodies, you know what I'm saying? And then you add a guy that they're familiar with, it's a lot of fun to come work every day."

Q: You talked about Adam Butler and John Jenkins. What did it mean to be able to get those guys back? Coach Leonard: 'Everything, everything. In terms of like creating a standard, him and 98 [Maxx Crosby] - this is one of the groups that what makes this special is you're building a team, not just a group of talent. So, their traits, their personalities all play off each other. They balance each other really well, which creates infectious energy and it's a lot of fun."

Q: You coached Christian Wilkins for a few years in Miami, how have you seen him grow as a player over the years? Coach Leonard: "A lot, a lot. Very similar to 98's [Maxx Crosby] path in terms of becoming a pro. In a lot of ways he struggled as a rookie, that tank for Tua [Tagovailoa] year in '19 was tough. It was tough on everybody, it was tough on me as a coach. I know it was tough on him. No different for nine [Tyree Wilson], last year was a tough rookie year, and a lot of like these young defensive linemen coming into their rookie year, especially the guys that are drafted the top of the draft, they have to deal with expectations and all those types of things. He's somebody that can talk him through that process, what he went through, and every year he just kept getting better and better. But you can see with these guys, and Christian [Wilkins] will talk about it, like when the light bulb went on. And then in my opinion, they just take ownership and create their own process. It turns into nutrition, it turns into their routine on and off the field. No different than 98. That's like what it's all about as a coach, seeing that come on, and then when they take ownership of it it's awesome."

Q: Obviously Tyree Wilson is trying to move in that direction. What have you seen from him? Obviously he wasn't out here last year at this point, it was probably a huge part of the struggles as a rookie, but what have you seen from him so far? Coach Leonard: "Mindset attitude, not given a you-know-what what people think. 'Hey, that's wrong, do it again, do the drill again.' Working to the standard of what we've created in that room and really as a defense. Really ain't that hard, it's defensive line play. It's playing hard, it's attacking the ball like it's anyone you ever loved and anything you hold dear and it's not getting blocked one on one. So, those may seem like cliches, but that's how we start off every meeting. That's what we're all about. You hear AP [Antonio Pierce] talk about it all the time. It needs to sound a certain way. I was talking this morning to the group about like that feeling when we went out in Kansas City took the field. I didn't know whether we were going to win or lose, but I knew the way the game was going to be played. So that's the standard we're trying to create. That's what Tyree [Wilson] is embracing. It's a mindset, it's a mentality over anything else, and he's displayed that in training camp. So, when you're not good at something and then pushing through it and working towards getting better at it, that is a mindset because there's people around, they see you do a crappy rep, no, wrong, do it again. Attacking the ball, running all the way down the field like 98 [Maxx Crosby], punching at it, being an a-hole unable, disrupting practice. If you develop that mindset, the results are just like - it'll happen. It'll happen."

Q: Do you think he heard the outside noise last year, that it kind of affected him last year? Coach Leonard: "Of course. Of course. Like I said, you try to say, 'Hey, your mindset in a bubble when you walk in this building,' but they're young guys, they know what's being said. I told him no different than I told Jaelan Phillips as a rookie, I said, 'It's not your fault. God made you this way, built this way and you were drafted seventh overall. The expectations come with it.' That's kind of what I'm - it's going on year 12 for me - you've got these hungry, chip-on-their shoulder players, Maxx Crosby, late-round draft pick. Our whole room is kind of filled up with, like I said, a lot of different personalities, but a lot of those chip-on[1]the-shoulder-type players. And then there's some guys that got to carry the burden of where you were drafted or the expectation. 94 [Christian Wilkins] is going to have to carry this year, and that's just part of the job fighting through it. But his approach, his mentality is right on par with what you want."

Q: You talked about different personalities and carrying that expectation. When you look at Malcolm Koonce and kind of his journey from where he was when you first got here to now. What would you describe as his personality and how has he grown? Coach Leonard: "He's grown tremendously. I think just the results were - I know that everybody talks about the last eight games, but I mean, he was winning a lot of rushes early just without the result. We try to stay away from focusing on the result of the sack. Christian [Wilkins] could get good middle push and the quarterback flush out the back and nine [Tyree Wilson] gets the sack, so really focusing on the process of winning each rush. And then it was fun to see it click for him. And he has that personality when he starts head butting and he starts getting like juiced up - 98 [Maxx Crosby] always brings the juice - when he gets going, then it really affects the whole unit. He's just fun. He has a great personality, always smiling, easy to talk to. A man of few words, but he's awesome."

Q: A guy coming into hi second year in a similar boat as Tyree Wilson is Byron Young, who didn't see a lot of action as a rookie. What kind of points of emphasis do you see for him to just take that next step? Coach Leonard: "Same thing with him. That kid knows how to play football, it's a nasty, it's a style of play he's still developing, it's a finish. It's more than just doing your job, but emphasizing the finish with him. He's really smart. He's really intelligent. He wants to be right, but it's playing with that edge at a consistent level. He's shown flashes of it, and I think he's had a hell of a spring doing those things."

Q: How much does it make you a better coach when you have Maxx Crosby, John Jenkins and Adam Butler who are developed players but they want to be mentors, so they're grabbing Byron Young, they're grabbing Tyree Wilson. How does it help you? Coach Leonard: "Tremendously, tremendously. We have a pretty transparent room, so when I'm coaching something, there's little details - my job is to set the standard for how we do things, how we play a base, how we play a reach, how we play scoop, how we rush the passer with four, how we rush five. Black and white is my job, this is how we do it. Their sauce, details within that are everything. They understand how to do things and then what I call change ups off of it. Like the standard way to middle push for example. There's a lot of details that go within that that they always touch on, stuff you hear, calls that the offensive line makes, stances, tips, and that's all stuff that can't be coached. You've got to play the game to understand those types of things. So, like tremendously."

Q: You mentioned you've been at it for 12 years, how much does that experience that you've seen players like Christian Wilkins start slow and obviously get to where you want to get to - when you're coaching somebody like Byron Young when you're coaching somebody like Tyree Wilson and maybe it didn't happen overnight for them, how much do you have to remind yourself it's still a process, not to get frustrated on your own and allow that process to unfold? Coach Leonard: "Yeah, I mean the experience of having started with the Giants - I had Lorenzo Carter, second overall pick, going to Miami - I could go down and down. But like you learn something from every experience, and not all the guys are the same. So how they handle that, how they deal with that and really communicating with them through that process and you just build. 'I just need you to do this today, reset.' You can't go in and, 'I want to accomplish this, this and this,' no, today let's just get this fixed, and then once we get that, then we'll build and just keep stacking. So, you're always trying to center their mindset on a day-to-day basis, and not just when they're here in the building in the offseason, that's year-round. What are you working at? What's your plan in the offseason? What's your plan this summer when we break for four weeks? But with their input along the way, but you've got to create the vision for them personally and have them walk it."

Q: You have a player from Nigeria in David Agoha from the NFL International Pathway Program. What's it like coaching somebody who's seen the game perhaps from just a different perspective and not learned it since he was five years old and trying to develop as a player? Coach Leonard: "It tests you as a coach. I love David [Agoha]. It makes me take nothing for granted, assume nothing. I think it was in training camp last year, we were putting in a call, we were like, 'David, this comes from the field,' and he was here all spring mind you. He's like, 'Coach what do you mean by the field, ' and I said, 'Shame on me, I didn't explain. This is the hashmarks on the field, this is the wide side of the field, this is the short side.' So, I sometimes say this line, I'm giving you guys lines that I say. Navy Seals, they say there are no bad boat crews, only bad boat captains, so like that's on me, that's my fault. So like with him, back to the progression thing, going back very basic, football 101, that's everything, calls. Why do we call it base defense? Why we call it nickel defense? What's nickel? All those types of things, so you're just building and trying to explain the basics of the game. And like I said, you can't assume it. I tell David, you've got to confirm, if you don't know you need to tell me you don't know, because a lot of guys will just sit there like, 'Yeah, alright."

Q: During OTAs there was a moment where a player had done something well and Antonio Pierce basically said that's what you get for listening to Coach Rob, reinforcing you to the players. That's not always the norm in the world of football where head coaches want to talk. He's very much building the staff up to the players. Can you talk about working for a coach like that? Coach Leonard: "It's awesome. It's the pillars he just talked about this morning, creating trust. When your head coach echoes. 'Hey, listen your position coach,' I mean, he's got to trust me first in order to say that, but players can sense all those when staff isn't aligned, and I'm very aware of that. Feenes [Matt Feeney] coaches the outside backers, he spends the most time with the SAMs. I've coached the outside backers, so when J-Rob [Janarius Robinson] or some of those guys come to me, I'm like, 'No, no no. Go to Feenes. Go talk to him,' to create trust that he knows - no crack in the foundation. Does that make sense? It's not that I can't answer the question. It's that's his department, and I'll echo what Feenes is saying. Because it could be the same thing, but if I'm not saying it the exact same way he's saying it, then it can create doubt. You want them fully confident in what you're asking them to do."