The Las Vegas Raiders bolstered the defensive line in a huge way when they selected Tyree Wilson No. 7 overall in the 2023 NFL Draft.
Wilson has the size, speed and skills to be a dominant pass rusher but suffered a foot injury that later required surgery. The rookie was forced to miss most of the offseason with the Raiders but was recently cleared to return to the field.
With a few practices under his belt, Las Vegas general manager Dave Ziegler detailed what he’s seen from Wilson so far.
“Well, one, it’s been good to see to get them out there,” Ziegler said. “And he worked really hard in the rehab process. Our athletic training staff led by Chris Cortez has done a really good job of kind of laying out for us, here’s how the process is going to go, here’s why it’s going to go this way and taking some baby steps or incremental steps here along the way to be patient and make sure when he got out in the field, he was ready to go. Three practices into playing in the NFL, and he’s practicing against a bunch of guys that have had a bunch of practices under their belt. And so, there’s going to be that learning curve.
“But he’s long, he’s explosive, he’s fast. Now, he just needs to learn how to play from a technique standpoint at the NFL level and understand he’s still learning the scheme and what the calls mean. There’s a hurdle that he went over to get on the field, and now there’s 1,2,3,4 more hurdles in terms of learning how to play the run, learning how to play certain pass defenses, the line game stunts, twists, all that stuff. So, he’s got a lot to do. He’s got a lot of work to do here in front of them, but we’re obviously excited to have him out on the field.”
The physical gifts are apparent when looking at Wilson, but as Ziegler notes he’s going to need time and reps to get comfortable with the scheme. However, his talent should be able to shine on the field when he gets snaps, and it’ll be exciting to see what he can do when he makes his NFL debut.
