Oakland Raiders Kickoff Their 2007 Training Camp

The Oakland Raiders Kicked off their 2007 training camp at the Napa Valley Training Complex in California on Thursday, July 26^th 2007. Players came by car, bus, pooled with other players, but as the day went on, almost all of the 92 players on the Oakland Raiders arrived except for a few. Training camp has been held at the Napa Valley Training Complex for quite some time now. The Oakland Raiders training camp is the only team this year that is having a closed facility to the public, only people that can get in were invited guests.

One of the most glaring holes at camp, and the big talk at camp was the no show of Jamarcus Russell, the #1 Pick in this year's draft. Also missing in action was the Raiders 2^nd round pick TE Zach Miller, whom has still yet to ink a contract. Also their 3^rd round selection Quentin Moses was a no show, also with no contract in place yet. The Raiders manage virtually every year to come into training camp with all their picks ready to play, except for this year.

Injuries

Michael Bush was the most notable injury at camp; he suffered a broken ankle in his senior year in college in the first game of the season, and is still recovering from that injury. Bush will be doing light activity until he gets cleared to go full speed in practice by the doctors.

Practice

The first practice kicked off at around 3:00 P.M. today, where they did basic drills with Special Teams, The Offensive Unit and Defensive Units. All the quarterbacks were trying to mesh with their new Wide Receivers and get a feel for each other. Kickers and Punters were doing their usual kicking drills. Linemen were doing their normal blocking drills taking turns hitting the dummies. They also got into a little 7 on 7 drills with no pads on just to get the feel of the pace of the game again.

Coach Kiffin is holding eight night practices this year during training camp. Those 8 days are the lone days that they will practice twice on the same day. The Oakland Raiders will practice at least once a day every day, between now and August 9^th, then preseason will kick off that weekend. At that point the Oakland Raiders will resume their normal practice schedules and only be practicing once a day.