Raiders Camp Battle: Myers-Ausberry-Gordon

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BRANDON MYERS RICHARD GORDONTight end
Brandon Myers vs. David Ausberry vs. Richard Gordon
Tale of the tape:
Myers: 4th season, 6-4, 250, Iowa
Ausberry: 2nd season, 6-4, 245, USC
Gordon: 2nd season, 6-4, 265, Miami
RosterDepth chartMore camp battles

The least experienced position group on the roster may also be the most intriguing and, well, malleable, what with the Raiders still holding three roster spots open and about 6.5 million in salary cap space three days before the team reports to Napa for training camp. Each player brings a different skill set and well, let's let Gordon break it down. "Everybody's doing something different like, mostly, I do the blocking, Ausberry's doing most of the catching, Brandon's doing both," Gordon surmised. Ausberry, who packed on muscle this offseason, was the dark horse coming into the spring and had a backer in quarterback Carson Palmer but the relative vet seemed to wrest control later. "You have a good feel that Brandon Myers will probably be the guy," Palmer said, "but behind him, you don't know. There's three guys who want that spot. There's going to be a lot of competition at that spot. All those guys are similar but each is really good at what the other guys isn't, which is exciting." Especially since the new offense brought in by returning coordinator Greg Knapp relies heavily on the tight end. "We were kind of nonexistent last year," Myers said. "You know, if you look at the track record with Houston and previous places coach has been, tight ends are a focal point of the zone schemes on the outside off the naked and stuff like that. It's on us to make plays and for them to trust us when it is third down to make the plays." And if this trio is what the Raiders enter the season with at tight end, Ausberry is fine with that. "We're capable of doing a lot of things just because we're athletic tight ends and that's going to give is a lot of chances to make plays in the open field."

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