Oakland Raiders safety Charles Woodson participated in Thursday's practice on a limited basis.
The Oakland Raiders were back on the practice field today as they continue preparations for this Sunday's home game against the Baltimore Ravens. It is often said or written that much improvement comes from Year 1 to Year 2 in someone's career, or from Week 1 to Week 2 in a season. The Raiders opening day performance against the Cincinnati Bengals was certainly not what the coaches and players planned for and it certainly isn't what the organization expected.
With the Ravens in town, the Week 1 to Week 2 axiom will be put to the test. The Raiders are taking a day-by-day approach as a pair of key players who were injured this past Sunday seem to be improving.
Offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave said that starting quarterback Derek Carr is better today than he was yesterday.
"Better today than yesterday. Yesterday was still good, but today he appeared more confident with cutting it loose and those kind of things," Musgrave said.
Oakland Raiders safety Charles Woodson injured his shoulder making a tackle late in the game against the Bengals. After just participating in the stretching period yesterday, he participated on a limited basis today, wearing a helmet and taking part in individual drills.
"You know Charles has been Charles for a long time, and he knows his body as well as anybody," said defensive coordinator Ken Norton, Jr. "It's still early in the week. You still have a few days left. Every injury is different, everybody is different. Everybody deals with pain differently. So we just have to go day by day."
Coach Norton has several options to work with at safety if Woodson can't play Sunday, including Larry Asante and the recently re-signed Taylor Mays, with whom Norton is very familiar.
"[Asante] is certainly a guy that we see as a guy that needs to get ready to play. He is a guy who has been around here. He knows the system. He knows what I want. I think so far he'll do a good job for us," Norton said. "He's [Mays] got some work to do. He's been here a short time. We had him early on shortly before the cuts. He has some history of the system back in his early college days. Hopefully that all comes back pretty soon, but we're using these days."
On the offensive side of the ball, rookie WR Amari Cooper, who led the team in receiving a week ago, will be squaring off against one of the better corners in the league this week, Baltimore's Jimmy Smith.
"Their whole team is pretty tough, rugged group, good football team," Cooper said. "We just have to come, be prepared and play tough as well."
Although Cooper is fresh out of the blocks as it were, Smith already respects the young receiver's game.
"I think he's a pretty talented rookie. He's a really good route runner," Smith said. "He's got speed and he's physical."
Song of the Day
The DJ must have read yesterday's practice notebook as this child of the 1970s and 80s heard a lot of old school hip-hop today. It may not be that old school, but today's song of the day is Jump Around by House of Pain featuring Everlast and DJ Lethal, who spun for Limp Bizkit for 15 years.
Tweets of the Day
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