RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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It became clear this offseason that the coaching staff put a circle around the secondary as a group that needed an influx of competition. The left outside cornerback in particular appeared ripe for the taking.
The man who the job would be taken from is second-year man Darien Porter. The third round rookie had a rough go of it. He was looking like he might be the starter out of camp, but was beaten out by Kyu Blu Kelly. And if you needed any indication of the state of things, Kelly is not even currently employed by an NFL team.
Porter had two starts in the first half of the last season and both were disasters that ushered Kelly back into the starting lineup. And it wasn't until Kelly was lost to an injury that Porter saw more than 50% of the snaps again.
So, you can see why the new staff was going to do everything they could to add talent to that position. And Porter had no illusions about why.
“I was not happy with how I played all the time last year, and there were times where I knew I had to be better, and I knew it could be better," he said. "So it was a lot of reflecting for me on what my weaknesses were, and really trying to dive into that throughout OTAs, throughout mandatory minicamp, and now throughout training camp. There was a lot of self-reflecting, a lot of self-scouting obviously.”
Porter has watched as third-year cornerback Decamerion Richardson along with rookies Jermod McCoy and Hezekiah Masses have taken a good amount of first team reps. But Porter has always been in the mix. Still seeming like he would be given every opportunity to keep the job.
"I think the thing with Darien [Porter] that maybe people forget is that he really didn't play that much DB in college," said secondary coach Joe Woods. "You have guys that play DB from when they're playing little league to high school to college, and he was a receiver. So, a lot of the nuances of the game for him was something that he was learning last year. So, now he's a lot more comfortable. There's still things he's working on, but I feel like he's really improved."
The 6-2, former wide receiver would've benefitted from a bit of a redshirt year as a rookie, but the Raiders weren't in that position. He was thrown into the fire. Which, while it made for a lot of difficulties along the way, gave him some valuable playing time that is helping him now.
"Guarding NFL guys, professionals week in and week out over time, it's just helped build my confidence," said Porter. "You make a couple of plays the confidence just keeps stacking, I feel like, throughout camp, I've made plays, coaches put me in a position to do that. So the confidence just keeps building from there.”
A full season and a full NFL offseason go a long way, especially for a raw talent like he is.
“Just knowing what to expect," he added. "I mean, obviously, you're gonna train throughout the off season, which I have, but now it's not so much of a surprise. You know what you're getting into. So a lot of emphasis on footwork, but not doing too much to where you're gonna hurt yourself. You know, being smart about it. But, just knowing what you're going to get out of a full long season really helps with the preparation.”
He's now watching as the rookies go through their growing pains and trying to take on more of a leadership role, while also pushing to keep his starting job.
Those efforts appear to be paying off. His job looked to be on shaky ground for much of the offseason and camp, but Porter came out with the first team defense and played just the one drive. The rookies entered after that and had quite the trial by fire.
When the team return to practice on Saturday, the rookies were again relegated to second and third team work with Porter seeing nearly all the first team work .
That game performance seems to have solidified Porter as the starter opposite Eric Stokes in the Raiders' secondary. And probably helps build Porter's confidence even further as he looks to take the proverbial year two jump.
This article originally appeared on Raiders Wire: Raiders CB Darien Porter gaining confidence to make year two leap
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