The Raiders don’t have left tackle Donald Penn practicing with the team and there’s no sign that his decision to hold out in hopes of landing a new contract is coming to an end soon, which would seem to be the sort of thing that would be hard for offensive line coach Mike Tice to turn into a positive for the team.
Tice stopped short of doing that on Wednesday, but he did find one silver lining for the Silver and Black when it comes to Penn’s absence and injuries that have kept other blockers out of practice at times this summer.
“Well it’s always good when you develop in depth,” Tice said, via the team’s website. “We had a number of days when we were down to 11 and 10 players. David [Sharpe] got banged up and he didn’t practice for five or six days. Jylan Ware, the young tackle, got a concussion. He missed a couple of days. Kelechi [Osemele] was only practicing every other day. We’ve had some days where we’ve had to make it happen with 10 or 11. When you have that, you get the ability, you have the ability, you have the opportunity to develop your depth. In the long run, it’s actually a good thing.”
There’s no question that depth is a positive for any position on any team and that the Raiders have to make the best of the situation if they are going to be without Penn come the start of the season. That doesn’t make the position Tice and the Raiders are in any more appealing, however, and Penn’s absence could leave the Raiders weaker at a spot that was one of their biggest strengths last season.