Raiders Tight Ends to Earn Targets by Blocking

The Las Vegas Raiders entered the offseason with one of the best young tight ends on their roster: Michael Mayer.

In his rookie season in the league, Mayer had the usual ups and downs of a rookie in the National Football League as he learned the ropes. One of Mayer's most significant growth areas last season was his blocking. Las Vegas’ previous coaching staff instilled the need for their tight ends to be productive blockers first and pass-catchers second.

The Raiders drafted tight end Brock Bowers with the No. 13 pick in the NFL Draft this season. The pick immediately gave the Raiders one of, if not the best, tight end duo in the league. However, even with a new, talented pass-catching tight end, the addition of Offensive Coordinator Luke Getsy, and Tight Ends Coach Luke Steckel, the Raiders’ will keep the same mentality regarding their tight ends. If their talented tight ends want targets, they must be dependable blockers first.

“I mean, first things first, I tell our guys they're going to earn all their opportunities in the pass game by blocking in the run game,” Steckel said. “So, that might be an old-school mentality. That's kind of my approach, is tight ends are blockers first, and then when we can go make plays in the pass game, that's just icing on the cake.”

Steckel plans to spend the offseason working with his group of tight ends to improve their blocking.

“So, that's stuff we're going to work on, especially this time of year," Steckel said. "There's no pads on. We're trying to take the physicality out of OTAs, and we don't want anyone getting hurt or having any big collisions on the field. So, that is stuff we will try to work in individual a lot and really fine-tune our footwork, our hand placement, our pad level. It's really things I got to emphasize as a coach in our individual periods this time of year before we're able to put the pads on in training camp and ramp up the physicality and actually block NFL players on the other side of the ball.”