Carroll Gives Update on Raiders' Critical Position Group

Rising Raiders

One of those players is defensive back Greedy Vance, who had a solid preseason. Following the Raiders' preseason loss to the Arizona Cardinals, Pete Carroll gave an update on Vance's rise and development.

"Yeah, he's a playmaker. I went back, probably last week, to look at his college tapes again, just to see if I'm seeing the same stuff here as we saw in college. And he's very aggressive, very instinctive player, and he takes his shots. So he's done that throughout the time in practice. He's made a ton of big plays, and he's a really good competitor, so we've really liked what he's shown," Carroll said.

Another player who had a solid training camp and was working his way to more playing time was defensive back Kyu Blu Kelly. The veteran cornerback had one of the best training camps of any player on the team, but has missed time with an injury.

Carroll explained how Kelly is dealing with the injury that has recently sidelined him. The Raiders are taking a cautious approach with Kelly, as they need their defensive backs ready to go for the upcoming season.

"Yeah, it was really, really unfortunate that he just has a sore hamstring, and he's got an old injury that he had surgery on years ago. And it was a little sensitive, so we just took care of him, with two weeks coming up, to get him ready for the opener, what he could contribute there. We took care of him. The thing I've been saying about him, he's really shown up to be active and aggressive and playing the style of play that we want," Carroll said.

"And he's been productive on the practice field. Again, the Niner week, he had a good week, and it's just unfortunate that -- he started last week, so we gave him a chance to show how he fits in. So he's done a lot of positive things, and we just needed to make sure that we didn't delay this return. So we held him out, but he's battling, and so he's done really well, and he's done a nice job on special teams also." 

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