Iron sharpens iron is an age-old adage, and that seemed to be the case when the Las Vegas Raiders joined the Los Angeles Rams for a joint practice.
The Rams poise a formidable challenge on both sides of the field, but all reports from their first practice seemed to favor the Raiders, who got the best of Los Angeles in several drills. However, the most surprising word from the practice was Hunter Renfrow getting the best of Jalen Ramsey on several occasions.
Ramsey, of course, is the premier cornerback in the NFL, and Renfrow was reportedly able to come down with catches with him in coverage. Derek Carr was impressed with Renfrow’s showing and praised the receiver.
“He doesn’t get enough credit for how straight-line fast he is,” Carr said. “I don’t think his 40-time, I don’t know what it was but whatever it was doesn’t do it justice. He’s fast. He can run.
“And just as fast as he can go that way, he can go this way. And there is a lot of guys that can straight-line track speed, but Hunter, the thing that makes him different, not only that side-to-side speed, is that he sees the coverages and he knows what route he’s running obviously, and he sees the coverage. He knows how it’s set up; he knows exactly what I want him to do, and he literally does it every single time.”
Carr also believes that finding success against Ramsey will boost Renfrow’s confidence heading into the season.
“I mean I think anyone in this league, especially the nickel corners that we play against, are really good players. And they had Jalen inside today on Hunter on some things, and Jalen is one of, if not the best, corner in the NFL. So, I think that gives a lot of confidence in Hunter. It gives me confidence to know that he can beat good corners. Jalen obviously is, again I’ve played against him a couple times and he is sticky.
“When you have a guy like Hunter, or a guy like [Darren] Waller, and these guys that can win against good players it gives you the confidence as a quarterback to get that ball out of your hand.”
Obviously, winning against Ramsey in practice versus live-game action is different, but it is still an encouraging development nonetheless. Hopefully, Renfrow is able to build upon this throughout the rest of the offseason.
