The Raiders pared 22 players from their roster Friday night in the final mandatory cutdown. One gets the sense that general manager Reggie McKenzie and coach Dennis Allen are far from finished shaping the roster in advance of the regular-season opener.
As expected, the Raiders kept veteran outside linebacker Aaron Curry on the physically unable to perform list as a result of his sore knees. Beyond that, there wasn’t any real surprise among the moves.
Perhaps more surprising, the Raiders kept cornerback Coye Francies, who was signed Wednesday, and ended up with four recently undrafted free agents making the team – wide receiver Rod Streater, guard Lucas Nix, defensive tackle Jamie Cumbie (2011) and linebacker Carl Ihenacho (2010).
Curry is ineligible to practice or play in any regular-season games for the first six weeks of the season. He can be activated during a 21-day window beyond the first six weeks.
Curry has not practiced for more than two months. Allen was hopeful that Curry’s knees would respond to treatments from a specialist in Southern California. To no avail.
As a result, rookie Miles Burris is slated to being the season in Curry’s place as the starting weak-side linebacker.
The Raiders are off Saturday and Sunday. McKenzie and Allen no doubt will be spending an inordinate amount of time scouring the waiver wire.
“Whatever moves we feel like give us a chance to be better, we’re going to make those moves,” Allen said in a conference call about 90 minutes before the Raiders submitted their moves. “We’re evaluating any and all positions to see if there’s someone out there that can help us.”
Based on the way the Raiders reserves played Thursday night in the team’s exhibition finale, it’s likely the Raiders can find a few upgrades from the more than 1,000 players purged from rosters leaguewide this week.
Few of Oakland’s projected starters played beyond the opening offensive and defensive series. Hence, the projected backups and roster hopefuls got plenty of playing time.
Allen wasn’t thrilled by much of what he saw, he said.
“That’s been a concern, the depth on our roster,” Allen said. “It just reconfirmed that we have to upgrade the bottom half of the roster because depth is a concern.”
Linebacker Nathan Stupar is the only member of Oakland’s 2012 draft class that didn’t make the 53-man roster despite shining against the Seahawks on Thursday night, Allen said.
“It’s been a little bit of an up-and-down deal with Nate,” Allen said before cuts were announced, “but he came out (Thursday) and played and acted like he wanted to try to get a spot on this roster.”
Apparently, it was a case of too little, too late for Stupar. Now, he has to hope he clears waivers and the Raiders decide to sign him to their practice squad.
Teams are permitted to sign as many as eight players to their practice squad once the waiver period has ended Saturday.
In other news, Allen said the handful of players who have been injured for more than a week worked out Friday. Therefore, he is hopeful that some or all of them will be healthy enough to play in the regular-season opener Sept. 10.
That list includes wide receivers Jacoby Ford and Denarius Moore, center Stefen Wisniewski and defensive tackle Richard Seymour.

The Raiders pared 22 players from their roster Friday night in reaching compliance with the league-mandated maximum of 53 players. Here is a list of the players removed from the roster:

Player Position Years
Lonyae Miller Running back 1
Kyle Efaw Tight end Rookie
+Tory Humphrey Tight end 5
Travionte Session Wide receiver Rookie
Roscoe Parrish Wide receiver 8
Brandon Carswell Wide receiver Rookie
Derek Carrier Wide receiver Rookie
Eddie McGee Wide receiver 1
Dominique Hamilton Defensive tackle Rookie
Dan Knapp Offensive lineman Rookie
Kevin Haslam Offensive tackle 3
Colin Miller Center 1
Nick Howell Offensive lineman 1
Hall Davis Defensive end 1
*Aaron Curry Linebacker 4
Nathan Stupar Linebacker Rookie
Kaelin Burnett Linebacker Rookie
Chad Kilgore Linebacker Rookie
+Brandon Underwood Safety 3
Curtis Taylor Safety 3
+Marquette King Punter Rookie
Eddy Carmona Kicker Rookie

*Placed on the physically unable to perform list. He is ineligible to play or practice for the first six weeks of the regular season.
+Placed on injured-reserve list

Here’s what Raiders coach Dennis Allen had to say in a 10-minute conference call a little while ago. Note that he refused to speak about the pending roster cuts or injuries to several of his key players. Those are sure signs that Allen and the Raiders are in regular-season mode. Enjoy the reading, while I go track down the roster moves:

Q: What can you tell us?
Allen: Not much. Right now I’m not going to talk about who we’ve released or who’s going to be on the team. We’re at that point in time where I’m really not going to talk about injuries, because this time of year we’re beginning to game plan, so I’ll talk about the game. I’ll talk about San Diego if you want to, but I really won’t talk much about the roster or injuries. Now we’ll talk more about the roster on Monday because we’ll have a better idea of where we’re at.

Q: Curry, can you address him, PUP, anything?
Allen: No, I’m not going to talk about anybody right now as far as what we’re going to do. We did talk to Curry today, he was in here, but we’re not going to say anything. That will actually get released, all that information will be released this evening.

Q: How different might the roster look from time you make moves to time you walk on the field for the opener, four or five guys? None?
Allen: We’re definitely looking, and whatever moves we feel like, I’ve told you guys before, really, honestly, whatever moves we feel like give us a chance to be better, we’re going to make those moves and we’re evaluating any and all positions to see if there’s someone out there that can help us.

Q: Did last night’s game play a role for a lot of guys or had you already decided?
Allen: Well, usually, when you get into those games you’re talking about the bottom part of your roster. Maybe it’s players 46 through 53, somewhere in there maybe, I don’t know what that number is. But there’s a handful of guys that it makes a difference whether they’re on your team or not.’

Q: Considering that it didn’t go very well for non-first teamers, not bode well for reserves?
Allen: yeah, well obviously, we didn’t play well last night. We didn’t execute very well. We beat up front on both sides of the ball. We had mental mistakes, and so, yeah, I would say, no it doesn’t bode well for some of those backup players. This is the National Football League and when we go in and play a game, these players, that played the other night, they’re going to be the guys, if we have an injury or somebody misses a game, those are going to be the guys that are going to have to step in and play and we’re going to expect them to play at the same level as what a starter does because that’s what we do. So, yeah, I was disappointed in what we got out of some of those guys.

Q: Are you more concerned now about the depth?
A: I don’t know if more concerned. That’s been a concern, the depth on our roster. I think it just reconfirmed that we have to upgrade the bottom half of the roster because depth is a concern.

Q: Do you see a team that is smarter, tougher and more disciplined and don’t have enough talent or missing those qualities?
A: There’s been progress in that regard. Obviously we haven’t been perfect and we’re not going to be perfect but we’ve made a lot of progress in that regard. I think we are a tough football team and we do have tough-minded people. I think we’ve played smart in situations and executed some situational football really well. I do think some of that discipline is showing up on the field. It’s still not the final product that we’re looking for. We’re always going to strive for improvement and we’re looking for perfection but I have seen improvement in that regard.

Q: Why no cuts announced yet?
A: It’s really an in-house thing. I don’t know how all the other teams do it. Roster cuts have to be turned into the league by 6 o’clock this evening our time. At 6 o’clock this evening our time we’ll turn the roster moves into the league and I’m sure it becomes public after that.

Q: Who stood out from the game?
A: Well there wasn’t a whole lot that stood out from a positive standpoint. I told you guys last night that defensively one of the guys that I thought played pretty well and also showed up on special teams was Bryan McCann. I thought Coye Francies made a few plays special teams wise. He obviously had the one ball he put on the ground on the kickoff but some of the coverage stuff was pretty good. Jack Crawford early in the game did a nice job, did some good things. Same things with Christo Bilukidi. Both those guys played 60, 70 snaps in the game. Offensively Taiwan again had a couple of really explosive runs and Mike Goodson had some runs in there that kind of showed a little bit more of what we saw early in training camp. We had a few plays here and there but overall performance wasn’t nearly what our standard is.

Q: What did you see from Stupar?
A: “He did some good things, he really did. I saw some instinctive football plays. He, obviously, was involved in several tackles. It was good to see Nate make a few plays there in that game.”

Q: Did it shock you that Stupar played well?
A: “No, there was some progress being made. With every rookie, a lot of times they’ll take two steps forward and one step back. So, it’s been a little bit of an up-and-down deal with Nate. But he came out last night and played and acted like he wanted to try to get a spot on this roster.”

Q: Was it good to see Shane punt that much last night?
A: “He came through it fine. It was actually good work for Shane. I believe this with my heart, and I’ll never change this; I don’t care whether you’re a punter, kicker, offensive lineman, defensive back, wide receiver, it’s a tough game. You don’t just not do anything and all of a sudden you come back and you’re perfectly ready to go. So, it was good for him to get out there and get some work. Obviously, it was more punts than what we would have wanted or anticipated, but it was good for him to get a few kicks in a real last game.”

Q: Do you expect back any of the injured players? Updates?
A: “No, nothing really. Hopefully, those guys, they were all in here working today, and I’m hoping that they’ll be back out and ready to roll.”

For the record, Raiders coach Dennis Allen called Thursday night’s 21-3 loss to the Seattle Seahawks “significant” because it came in the final tune-up before the regular-season opener. Deep down, though, Allen knows this game won’t be remembered by many, if any, 10 days from now. Read the rest of this entry »

Ready or not, here they come.
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Score: Seahawks 13, Raiders 0
First downs: Seahawks 12, Raiders 3
Total yards: Seahawks 202, Raiders 49
What it means regarding first game: Zero.

Will be looking on the waiver wire for more return specialists however. Roscoe Parrish lost one punt return and muffed another, and Coye Francies fumbled his first-half kick return (the Raiders recovered).

Raiders have already benched most of their starters after one series, save for linebacker Miles Burris.
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Stephen Hauschka kicked off out of the end zone, with the Raiders taking over on the 20-yard line. No sign of Darren McFadden. Taiwan Jones playing.

Note: Painfully slow internet could limit update capability . . .

Dennis Allen said he would visit the issue of whether Darren McFadden would see action against Seattle and his answer may come as a surprise.
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Join Steve Corkran for a live chat during the Oakland Raiders’ final exhibition game, Thursday at 7 p.m. against the Seattle Seahawks.