McDaniels settled and ‘all about the details’ as Raiders open practice

By Case Keefer (contact)

Friday, July 22, 2022 | 2 a.m.

Everybody back east asks Josh McDaniels about the desert heat. Nobody believes his answer.

The new Raiders coach, an Ohio native who’s spent the last decade in New England, says he’s not only become accustomed to the triple-digit temperatures but doesn’t even mind them.

“I walked out of the office last night, and it was 99 degrees or whatever it was, but it felt great because there wasn’t that humidity factor,” McDaniels said Thursday morning. “I don’t sweat much out here, so I like that part.”

With his own variation of the “it’s a dry heat” cliché down pat, McDaniels is fitting in just fine less than six months since moving to Las Vegas. And now, the 46-year-old is fully in his element as the Raiders opened training camp practices Thursday at their Henderson headquarters.

The full team reported Wednesday, but their only on-field work was conditioning drills. The Raiders can’t put on pads until next week under NFL rules, but a 90-minute session Thursday morning with an excessive heat warning already in effect gave the first glance of how practices will look under McDaniels.

Players stuck mostly with their position groups, but the drills were fast-paced and discipline-oriented. Practices didn’t lack for energy or intensity under coach Jon Gruden and interim coach Rich Bisaccia last year, but there was typically a little more down time.

Not on Thursday, as repetitions were constant, and when players made a mistake, they took off on laps around the field.

“It’s all about the details,” center Andre James said. “These coaches are super detail-oriented, and we love that.”

McDaniels admitted to some nerves in overseeing his first training camp in 12 years, last helming the Denver Broncos as head coach from 2009 to 2010. The overall objectives and basic plans of training camp are second nature to him after 21 years in the NFL, but there are many more factors to consider when in charge.

In making the schedule, he partook in crash courses to get education on meteorology, hydration techniques and heat-related illnesses, to name a few.

“I’ve probably run through a half-dozen or more calendars where you’re looking, mapping it out, trying to find what’s the right way to approach it,” McDaniels said. “You have 50 some days or whatever it is until we actually begin the regular season so it’s just really, ‘what’s the best use of our time, the best use of our on-the-field practice time,’ so this is the choice we made.”

The conclusion he reached was practicing early in the morning, like Gruden installed before him, and starting slow in terms of workload.

McDaniels referred to the first week of practices as “Phase 2,” meaning they are more like June’s minicamp with basics being the focus. There were no “competitive portions” — where the offense and defense face off against each other — Thursday and may not be for a few more days.

“That’s just our choice,” McDaniels said. “We’re going to go back through and really go through the teaching on both sides of the ball and special teams, too. We can’t be in pads until next week anyway, so we wanted to real take some time and go back through our fundamentals at each position, our fundamentals that we really want to nail down here.”

The fundamental the Raiders seemed to struggle the most with Thursday were snaps. James was among the players who took laps after a miscue, though he didn't have to run as much as rookie third-round draft choice Dylan Parham.

The University of Memphis product is expected to get looks at several offensive line positions, but he spent a lot of time at center Thursday. He wasn’t always in sync with the quarterbacks, including starter Derek Carr, as the pair were the first to run a lap after a botched exchange.

“It’s a mistake, mistakes cost you,” safety Duron Harman said. “At that point in practice, it might not cost you the game, but it’s going to cost you a lap, and if you ask those guys, after you run that lap, you’re a little tired and you have to go back and still have to focus. It’s a part of the accountability we want to have to be a part of this team.”

The 31-year-old Harmon is one of the newest Raiders, signing a one-year deal this offseason after playing for the Atlanta Falcons last season. He was alongside McDaniels and a handful of the other current Raiders’ coaches for seven years to start his career in New England.

The staff was a large part of what drew Harmon to the Raiders as he said he “just knew what these guys stood for.” So far, led by McDaniels, they’ve maintained it in Las Vegas.

“I’m just really trying to enjoy the process of being a head coach at this point,” McDaniels said.

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or