Five players to watch in Raiders’ second preseason game

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Saturday, Aug. 21, 2021 | 2 a.m.

Don’t expect fireworks when the Raiders take the field for their second preseason game on Saturday against the Los Angeles Rams.

The current trend in the NFL is that joint practices are intense, and the ensuing preseason game is more about going through the paces. That pattern will likely hold for the Raiders and Rams after they battled through two fiery joint sessions on Wednesday and Thursday.

Those practices featured all the key matchups you’d want to see: Derek Carr and his receivers going head to head against Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey, the Raiders defense facing off against new L.A. quarterback Matthew Stafford, and Aaron Donald taking on the revamped Raiders offensive line.

The intensity ran high, as Thursday’s practice devolved into a brawl that forced Raiders coach Jon Gruden to pull his team off the field.

After that explosive finale, it’s likely both teams will throttle down on Saturday and take a “better safe than sorry” approach to playing their starters.

Gruden seemed to hint that Las Vegas won’t go all out in the penultimate preseason game.

“We’re going to try to be smart and also try to keep on schedule in terms of our young players’ development and this team’s development,” Gruden said after Thursday’s practice. “So we’ll meet as a staff and determine who’s up and who’s out here in the next day or so.”

With the actual game taking on a depth and development look, here are five players to watch:

Trevon Moehrig

Las Vegas’ second-round pick in the draft has impressed in camp and may have already locked himself into the starting free safety job when Week 1 rolls around. He made an interception during Wednesday’s practice, building off his solid showing in the first preseason game.

The TCU product needs reps, though, and is likely to play a decent amount of snaps on Saturday.

Gruden praised Moehrig and the rest of the secondary for their performance in the joint practices.

“Yeah, I’m really pleased with him,” Gruden said. “I thought he did an excellent job. Very pleased with a lot of our young players. Second-year receivers and Moehrig in the middle of our defense. [Damon] Arnette had a couple of good days, Trayvon Mullen is stepping his game up. So, we’ll go look at this tape and I know it wasn’t perfect, but pretty good. Pretty good against a very good offensive team. We’re excited about it.”

Javin White

White started and played into the fourth quarter of the first preseason game, and the second-year linebacker excelled, especially when asked to cover running backs out of the backfield. With Nick Kwiatkoski and Nicholas Morrow likely to sit due to injury on Saturday, and expensive veteran Cory Littleon unlikely to log many snaps, White will probably be asked to play wire to wire again.

This could be a big opportunity for the UNLV alum to prove he belongs on the final 53-man roster.

Tanner Muse

Like White, Muse can take advantage of the available snaps at linebacker on Saturday. After missing his entire rookie year due to injury, Muse finally got on the field against Seattle last week and didn’t look overwhelmed, which was a good sign considering he is making the transition from college safety to NFL linebacker.

Muse said his injury concerns are behind him and that he’s back to playing instinctually.

“I don’t have to think about anything,” Muse said. “I can just get to fly around. I don’t count my steps or anything like I’ve done in the past couple years. I can just explode out of cuts and drops. It’s a new me.”

Alex Leatherwood

Las Vegas’s first-round rookie has had a good training camp, but his performance in the first preseason game was uneven. Leatherwood started at right tackle and flashed his sheer power on a couple of short-yardage runs, but he also missed some key blocks on goal-line running plays.

That’s to be expected for a first-year player, but the Raiders will sleep a bit easier if Leatherwood is more consistent on Saturday. He played just the first quarter last week, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see him go until halftime against the Rams.

Marcus Mariota

There was talk earlier in camp about Gruden building a red-zone package around Mariota, but since then the Raiders’ No. 2 quarterback has missed time due to a leg injury and did not play at all in the first preseason game.

Mariota returned to practice this week and could take some snaps against the Rams; if he looks healthy and flashes his dual-threat ability, expect the chatter about special packages to heat up again.

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.