Raiders report: Defensive leader fueled by caramel macchiatos

Perhaps the only thing Raiders linebacker Denzel Perryman takes more seriously than his approach to bringing ball carriers to the ground is his morning coffee routine.

“I’m a caramel macchiato guy,” Perryman said after Thursday’s practice. “And I add like two more espresso shots. I use the Starbucks app every morning. I have like 500 points now.

“It’s a routine. If I don’t have it, I feel like I’m off.”

Routine is important to Perryman, who has become one of the NFL’s most consistent tacklers. He finished sixth in the league last season with 154 despite missing two games.

Perryman got off to a slow start this season, missing two games and being limited in two in the first four weeks. He was finally at full strength Oct. 10 against the Chiefs and had his best game with eight tackles and a sack on a season-high 68 percent of the defensive snaps.

Coach Josh McDaniels has enjoyed getting to know Perryman, one of the more colorful characters in the locker room, and watch him develop as a leader.

“As I’ve been in the league longer and grown as a coach and a person, I think it’s more important for us to get to know the guys and what makes them tick off the field,” McDaniels said. “I think that’s as important as the stuff that we do in the meeting room and on the practice field. Denzel has got a lot of things that he’s interested in. He’s got a great personality. It’s not just the physical guy that you see on the football field; there’s a lot of other things to him.”

Perryman might even buy his coach a cup of coffee some day.

“Every morning he watches me leave to go get coffee and come back,” Perryman said. “He always texts that I could have brought him one. I’m like, ‘My bad.’”

Injury report

Wide receiver Hunter Renfrow missed Thursday’s practice with a hip injury. It appears to be a new issue because Renfrow was not listed on Wednesday’s report.

While his status for Sunday’s home game against the Texans is uncertain, it’s another setback for Renfrow, who missed two games with a concussion.

Renfrow played against the Chiefs, catching all four targets for 25 yards, before the team’s Week 6 bye.

His disjointed season is perhaps one of the reasons for the downturn in his production. He has 14 catches for 105 yards in three games. He also has fumbled three times, one of them leading to a Week 2 overtime loss to the Cardinals.

Also, tight end Darren Waller missed Thursday’s practice with a hamstring injury. He missed much of training camp with the injury and aggravated it against the Chiefs, and doesn’t appear to be on track to play Sunday.

Tight end Foster Moreau got in a limited practice and is expected to play Sunday after missing the past two games with a knee injury.

Wide receiver Mack Hollins (heel) and linebacker Jayon Brown (hamstring) also got in limited practices.

Searching for steadiness

McDaniels continues to preach consistency at practices after watching his 1-4 team unravel at key moments during games.

“There’s no shortcut,” he said. “If you can go an hour and 55 minutes and really stay tapped in and focused on your job, do a great job of communicating pre-snap, do your assignment the right way once the ball is snapped, (you’ll get there). Football is an imperfect game, so we’re never going to play a perfect game, but I would say just being able to try to replicate the type of competitive stamina that we need to be able to produce more than one quarter, two quarters, three quarters is what we’re working toward.”

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.