Raiders don pads for first time in training camp Sunday

NAPA, Calif. — Doug Martin is waiting to see it Sunday.

Or maybe, he’ll hear it.

Since signing in March, the Raiders running back has practiced here a couple of months. He has yet to do so in pads. On Saturday, he said he already feels the team boasts “probably the top running line that I’ve run behind” in his seven-year NFL career.

That opinion, he expects, soon will be solidified.

“Tomorrow’s going to be that,” Martin said. “I feel like I’m going to have that epiphany.”

The pads finally are coming on at training camp. The Raiders will wear them for the first time since a Dec. 31 season-finale loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. Coaches. Players. Much has changed in seven months, but one constant is how integral pads are to player evaluation.

Notoriously, players can look great in the spring but fade during the higher-intensity summer and fall.

Others look underwhelming in shorts until the increased physicality elevates their game.

“Many examples over my 17 years,” offensive coordinator Greg Olson said. “It’s happened at all positions, whether it’s offensive line or skill positions or quarterback, in terms of courage in the pocket. You don’t get a real feel for that until you have live bullets coming at you.”

Pads are especially important in the running game.

The Raiders have a new offensive line coach in Tom Cable. They could have as many as two new starting tackles in Week 1 — presently, rookie Kolton Miller is at left tackle and March signing Breno Giacomini is at right. Martin is new to the backfield behind Marshawn Lynch.

A running game requires timing, be it how blockers work double teams or how a back anticipates his blocking and cuts into a perceived hole before it opens.

Only so much can be simulated without pads.

Sunday represents a move closer to game speed.

“Honestly, I’m one of those people where I don’t understand how you can practice without pads,” said Kelechi Osemele, a Pro Bowl left guard. “It’s football. It’s really important. It’s where you actually start getting that continuity on the offensive line. … That’s when the real work actually begins for us up front.

“Just working on pad level. Working on timing of your second step of double teams and stuff like that. The things, the nuances that go with being an offensive lineman. I mean, that’s when the work is going to really start.”

Pads cannot be worn until the third practice of training camp, according to the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement.

Moving forward, the usage remains highly regulated.

Players cannot participate in more than one padded practice per day, and that session cannot last more than three hours. During the season, a team is allowed 14 padded practices. A maximum of three can be held during the final six-game stretch. Training camp is the only time a team can practice in pads three times in the same week. In the regular season, two padded practices in a single week can occur just once.

Many teams choose not to go “live,” a practice period in which players tackle all the way to the ground. Raiders coach Jon Gruden is expected to do so at times during training camp.

It starts now.

“You have to be tough to play at this level,” Olson said. “It’s a man’s sport. There are a lot of guys that can come out and run routes and catch the ball, running backs that can run through holes without pads. But once you get the pads on, you get a real feel for how tough that player is.”

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Contact reporter Michael Gehlken at mgehlken@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GehlkenNFL on Twitter.