Silver and Black Report

Oakland Raiders head coach Tom Cable made an appearance on the Murph and Mac show on KNBR 680 this morning. The coach talked about various topics, including the start of the OTA today and his quarterback situation. Here’s a transcript of some of the interview:

About the Organized Team Activities:

We start our OTA practices today. And we’ll go Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday this week, the same next week and it I’ll be about a lot of situations and kind of just putting the team back together again. Getting the rookies caught up and kind of advance where we at on offense and defense.

About attendance and the voluntary nature of OTAs:

The most important thing about OTAs is taking the bottom half of your team and raising its level. You’ll like to have everyone here, but it’s not the most important thing right now. You want your young guys here and your guys that you felt like, maybe you drafted a year ago that are still developing. Those are really the most important guys. But certainly having as many as you can make sit easier to do as many drills and situations as you can.

About the attendance of the draft picks:

They all are here.

About Roland McClain:

Well, I think that he fits a very important issue for us in trying to make our front seven better on defense, in terms of stopping the run and getting better, letting the secondary be able to perform on third down. So it was a big need.

What we got him from him was a guy who is a champion. He comes from a very good program, he’s been taught well his mind sight is whatever it takes and he’ll work all day. So I think is a breath of fresh air that you got a young guy in here that is committed to working and to being good.

About Jason Campbell and whether he’s the starter:

Jason is here. We’ll have Jason, Charlie Frye, Kyle Boller – all three of those guys will get work. Probably, pretty equal amount of work as we go here. Then when we get to camp, really at Napa, that’s when the competition will really get going.

On Bruce Gradkowski’s status:

Well he is [still injured]. He’s coming along fine and the [pectoral muscle] should be healed. He’ll be done, ready in time for camp certainly, but he’s here every day working and learning, but physically he won’t do anything until we go to camp.

About the wide receivers and how Campbell at QB will help:

Well, I think its going to be a little of both. You know, first of all, you got Chaz Schilens, you got Johnnie Lee Higgins, and then you got Louis [Murphy] and Darrius [Heyward-Bey] who you already mentioned, and when you look at those guys, they are all a year older. Johnnie and Chaz are really just third year guys and then you got Darrius and Louis being second year guys. So their maturity is going to happen just by being in the league and understanding what it takes to perform at this level, how to take care of your body, how to study, all those little things. Then you put a guy like Jason in the mix with them, who literally, if they wanted to go out and throw balls all day, he’ll go out with them, play catch, throw routes, work on ball handling, whatever- they are all kind of gym rats.

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Contact Author: Victor Cotto – SB Report Columnist