Raiders restricted free agent Marcel Reece signed his exclusive rights tender yesterday and will be practicing with the team beginning today, the team announced yesterday.

Reece had little leverage and a hold out seemed very unlikely as no team had made him an offer and his choice was to either sign his tender or hold out for the season.

There are rumblings that the Raiders and Reece's agent have been working on a long-term deal but while the details are still being worked out it was important for Reece to get into OTAs and begin to learn the playbook and the nuances of the Fullback position under Greg Knapp.

With their sixth round, 189th pick overall, of the 2012 draft, the Raiders tabbed DT Christo Bilukidi from Georgia State to join their roster.  Bilukidi became the first player ever selected from the school, which is in the Football Championship Subdvision (FCS, formerly Division 1-AA).

Bilukidi played in basketball in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and has only somewhat recently become a football player as a Senior in High School.

Bilukidi played for Eastern Arizona Junior College in 2009 where he was listed as playing DE.  He played in 10 games and ended with 24 total tackles, 5 for loss and 4 sacks that season.

He transitioned to Georgia State in 2010 and 2011 where he was their top defensive lineman with 10 career sacks – the school's record – and 16 career tackles for loss over the two seasons.  He achieved 5 sacks both years playing for Georgia State. 

He lined up at DT, mostly, but also was able to slide over to play DE at need.

Bilukidi has recently joined Twitter and you can follow him, there @montechristo96

Interview:

Q: What is your home city/country?

Bilukidi: Ottawa, Canada

Last year, in the 5th round, the Raiders took a chance on a talented but inconsistent wide receiver out of Tennessee named Denarius Moore. Moore had had some success in college but changes in coaching had caused him to be less productive in his later years, which contributed to his fall to the fifth round.

From the very start of camp, he was the talk of Raider fans and media as well as occasioning comment from many of the players and coaches for his speed, sure hands and acrobatic receptions.

I wanted to get a good idea of Moore's strengths and weaknesses so I went to multiple games from last season to see what I could find.

Usually for a players Tale of the Tape I try to watch 2-3 games if the player is a starter because that usually gives me a good idea of what that player can do. If the player is a backup, I'll watch more to get a larger sample size but I'll go through the game logs and watch plays that the player is in, not every play.

Moore proved to be somewhat difficult, however, so I ended up watching 5 games of his film. I watched 3 games with Jason Campbell as the QB - namely weeks 2, against Buffalo, 3, against the Jets & 4 against New England - and then 2 with Palmer under center - weeks 10 & 11, against San Diego and Minnesota, respectively.

The primary reason that Moore's Tale of the Tape was more difficult than many others is that he does so many things well. I try very hard to find strengths and weaknesses on the players I review and an all positive tape-review isn't accurate. Therefore it was important to watch a large sample size of plays to get as good an idea of what Moore can do as a player.

TFDS has been discussing the many changes in both personnel and coaching this offseason in an effort to prime Raiders fans for what to expect with the new team, both positive and negative.

Recently, we discussed the West Coast offense and how the Quarterback and Wide Receivers are likely to be used in the new scheme brought by Offensive Coordinator Dennis Allen.

Allen is not the only new coordinator, however. The Raiders Defensive unit will also be gettin a make-over with the addition of Jason Tarver.

If Al Davis loomed large over the decisions of the offensive coaches every Sunday - and he certainly did - his presence was much more noticable on the defensive side. Woe to the coordinator who strayed too far from Davis' preferred 4 man rush with man coverage on the outside.

Davis didn't outlaw blitzing or anything like that but he wasn't a big believer in them. If they worked, he would allow them but if they were not working the defensive coordinator had to understand Davis' displeasure with his choices.

With Mr. Davis' passing, so too passed the Raiders reliance on one single scheme. Tarver is likely to bring a much more varied approach to defense that will attempt to confuse and confound their opponents with disguised schemes and fronts.

It has been said that the Raiders intend to transition to a West Coast style offense under offensive coordinator Greg Knapp.  There are a lot of questions about what the offense will look like.  TFDS is doing our best to answer questions on the offense – first by looking at Knapp's tendencies as an offensive coordinator for the Seahawks in 2009 and then looking at Houston's offense last season.  Knapp was the QB coach in Houston in 2010 and 2011.

Now, we will be talking about West Coast offense (WCO) philosophies and tendencies as a primer to discussing personnel fits with the Raiders.


                                                                                                                            A page from Walsh's 1985 49ers playbook

After letting this week's OTA session and other moves permeate a bit, I thought I'd weigh in on some thoughts about the recent actions of the team and performance of the players.  If you'd like a recap of what happened, a good one is here.

Player moves:

The team added QB Kyle Newhall-Caballero, an undrafted free agent from Brown.  Newhall-Caballero is 6'3", 214 lbs.  He threw during the media session on Tuesday and showed a good arm.

Even so, he'd have to really blow the team away to make the squad.  Instead, he's likely playing for the practice squad as the scout team QB.

Head coach Allen indirectly confirmed that he's a long shot to make the team saying, "That was the plan all along, to bring in a 4th quarterback. We wanted to bring 4 to camp, to make sure we did have 4 arms and I think Kyle will do a nice job there."

Newhall-Caballero has selected to wear number 10.

My informal count of the squad is that the Raiders are currently carrying 87 players.  They are allowed up to 90 players.

OTA notes:

Because there is no contact in the practice sessions, most of the more interesting OTA bits come from the interviews afterwards, especially with coach Allen.

In his interview he weighed in on a lot of different topics.  Here were some of the more interesting topics for your consumption:

This off-season the Raiders traded for former Carolina Panther's RB Mike Goodson in a rare player for player trade, giving up the rights to OL Bruce Campbell for Goodson.

Goodson had hardly any opportunities in Carolina, being buried on the depth chart. In fact, during the 2011 season he did not carry the ball once. His only stat for 2011 was a reception that gained 4 yards.

In 2010, Goodson was able to help his team much more. He played in all 16 games that season and started 3 when both DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart were out with injury.

It was to those games in which he was a starter that I turned for his film review because it gave me the best idea of how he would hold up over a game and how complete a back he was.

Specifically, I looked at Weeks 10 and 11 of the 2010 season, with Carolina facing off against Tampa Bay and Baltimore, respectively.