Raiders create bubble for rookies during training camp

While the NBA and NHL have created a COVID-19 bubble environment and at least one NFL team is doing the same during training camp, the Raiders are opting for a partial full-time bubble.

Raiders rookies are staying at a Las Vegas Valley hotel during camp and have the option of taking a shuttle to and from the team practice facility in Henderson. Veterans are free to go home after each workday.

That is different from the New Orleans Saints, who are renting several floors at a hotel to serve as an optional housing area for players during camp.

“It’s not a bubble. It’s a sequester,” Saints coach Sean Payton said to NBC’s Peter King.

Given the Raiders’ success getting through the first phase of COVID-19 screening — of the 90 or so players who have been tested, only running back Devontae Booker tested positive — their plan is working.

The key, of course, is players being responsible away from the facility, which has been set up as a virtual cocoon in which mandated protocols and procedures are fiercely followed during the time players and staff are present.

It’s a different story outside the building when players are free to come and go as they please — with a definitive mandate from coach Jon Gruden.

“I want to dominate when we leave the building,” Gruden said. “We want to crush this virus.”

Contact Vincent Bonsignore at vbonsignore@reviewjournal.com. Follow @VinnyBonsignore onTwitter.