Raiders report: Offensive line to be settled on the field

It wouldn’t be difficult to guess about the identity of the five starters on the offensive line after watching a week of Raiders training camp practices. But any firm declaration would best be characterized as premature.

“It’s too early to sit here and try to say where it’s at,” coach Josh McDaniels said before Thursday’s morning practice when asked specifically about the right tackle position. “There are multiple guys in there that are competing. They know that. They all know it. We’re going to try to play the best 11 guys on every snap.”

Kolton Miller at left tackle and Andre James at center are almost certain to hold those spots. John Simpson has been playing in between them at left guard most of the time in practice, but it’s the right side of the line that has been the subject of the most speculation.

Lester Cotton Sr. has emerged as the most likely candidate at right guard while Brandon Parker may be ahead of 2021 first-round pick Alex Leatherwood at right tackle, though both are getting plenty of reps.

“Everybody is going to get opportunities,” McDaniels said. “Jermaine (Eluemunor) is doing the same thing. Thayer (Munford) is doing the same thing. We’ve got a lot of people rotating in there on the right side and playing a lot of spots too. It’s not just one spot on the line.

“There’s a lot of competition. They’ve embraced it and I think it makes them all better. We’ll look forward to letting it play out on the field. They’ll determine it.”

McDaniels, a noted perfectionist, didn’t sound overly thrilled with how the first practice in pads went on Wednesday. The silver lining was the timing that allowed the Raiders a quick chance to bounce back on Thursday.

He said several individual technique issues showed up on review of the film from Wednesday’s practice, so the goal Thursday was to try to clean up those things rather than install new aspects of the system.

“We’re going to try to go back to some of the things we did and hopefully see some progress,” McDaniels said. “Because our big thing is we don’t get many days like this where we get to re-do a bunch of things we did (Wednesday) without the urgency of adding a bunch of new installation and talking about an opponent and all those things you have to do during the regular season.”

Injury report

Rookie running back Zamir White still has yet to practice with the team since the beginning of training camp, but McDaniels hopes to see him on the field soon.

“He’s doing everything he can to get back out there as soon as possible,” he said. “The hope would be it’s not too much longer, but we’ll make sure we’re smart about all those guys.”

Safety Roderic Teamer and defensive end Clelin Ferrell haven’t returned to the field since leaving practice on separate days early in the week.

“There’s a handful of them that haven’t been able to be out there for a couple days and they’re all working extremely hard to try to get back as soon as possible,” McDaniels said. “(Ferrell and Teamer) I don’t think we’re talking about something long, long-term. But just working through that and hopefully they’ll be out there as soon as they can.”

Smooth transition

Cornerback Anthony Averett has been getting plenty of reps, especially with Trayvon Mullen still on the PUP list.

The free agent signing has been with Baltimore his entire career, so this is his first experience with a new team.

“Not only that, but really my first time being on the West Coast in general,” he said. “A lot of people don’t think about that part of it. But I like it. Great atmosphere and I love the Raider nation. I love everything about it so far.”

He also thinks he’s going to enjoy playing behind a defensive line that is expected to generate plenty of pressure on the quarterback. It’s one of several reasons he signed with the Raiders.

“You can play way more aggressive that way,” he said. “It was just a perfect spot for me.”

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