A.J. Cole on Las Vegas Raiders, New England Patriots Practices

The Las Vegas Raiders prolific punter A.J. Cole took time to discuss joint practices with the Las Vegas Raiders.

HENDERSON, Nev.-When you are as talented as the Las Vegas Raiders' prolific punter A.J. Cole, you can have fun at practice.  Something he did this week versus the New England Patriots.

Cole took time to take fans inside the workouts and to give the state of the Raiders.

You can watch the entire press conference below, and read the transcript:

Punter AJ Cole

Q: Did you challenge the Patriots special teams players?

AJ Cole: “Yeah, we challenged them to some thumb wrestling and pretty much went even there.”

Q: Last official practice of training camp - is there a transitional period moving into the regular season?

Cole: “I think from a special teams period it goes from everybody is all working together to then you’re just working the guys that are going to be actually out there on the punt team and stuff. But for me it's really just the same stuff. It's kind of like a slow build from OTAs to training camp to just being where you want to be for the season. So, for me it's just learning what there is to learn from the preseason games, taking what's valuable and leaving the rest and just getting ready for the season.”

Q: What are those conversations like between special teams guys on other teams?

Cole: “I find that there’s a lot of value at a joint practice. You can see how another team specialists practice, how they work, how they warm up, what they're kind of doing to get ready for the set. Sometimes we're out there, there's not a lot of field space, we're kind of kicking on the side or in the indoor. I think you can learn a lot just talking to them about their mentality, what are they thinking about, what are their cues, when they're going through the season when they have a good game or a bad game. That’s just kind of the conversations that sort of come up. I guess it's because you don't really know what else to talk about and that's the main thing we have in common. But you end up learning a lot, so every joint practice we’ve had before this is has been with the Rams, so I've learned a lot from Johnny Hekker who's obviously had a great NFL career, and then learning from Jake (Bailey) too, a guy that's the same age as me, we came in the same year. Because we’re kind of in the same point in our career, so it’s good to see what he does, see what I do and try and steal some stuff if you can. It’s a great opportunity. I really enjoy getting to work with guys like that.”

Q: You’ve talked about the different personnel that could be on the field for punt team. In your mind, does it matter who’s out there with you?

Cole: “No, not really. It's really just about getting the best 11 on the field. It's not like with the way I punt some people would be better or worse. It's just about getting the guys that are going to protect and cover in the best way possible.”

Q: There was a lot of talk about your hypothetical ‘fight’ with Daniel Carlson or Trent Sieg. Is there anything new this year, are you keeping that up?

Cole: “Trent has been trying to legitimately tape my thumbs together and actually go through the wrestling thing, which I think it's kind of dangerous. Probably shouldn’t do it during the season, so we'll save that for the offseason. But every time we get in the offseason, he's got all these excuses, ‘Oh, my wife's pregnant. I'm about to have a kid,’ things like that, so he doesn't want to do it in the offseason. We've talked a lot about having some one-on-one basketball because I like talking about basketball, but when it's time to play I can never find my shoes and I'm just never showing up. We talk about that a little bit. Just like on a day-to-day basis, we've spent so much time together that we're just coming up with like ridiculous hypotheticals all day long. It's really the only thing we can do to keep ourselves sane.”

Q: Any Mack Hollins stories?

Cole: “Me and Mack [Hollins] were talking this morning actually about if right after you die, if you could get access to any statistic. I saw it on the internet. Like if you could get access to any life statistic, like how many steps you've taken in your life or how many yards you've ran or how many balls he's caught or something like that. I think he said that the one he’d bring up is how many wrong decisions he’s made. We were talking about that; it was a hypothetical that was going on this morning. Just another day in the foam roll session.”

Q: Isn’t that impossible, because if you make a wrong decision, you don’t know how many wrong decisions could have played off that one?

Cole: “Do you ever play chess on the chess app? Mack [Hollins] is a big chess player, you should ask him about that. Mack plays a lot on chess.com. When you finish a chess.com game, what it'll show is how many mistakes you had, how many blunders you had, which I guess that’s like a British word for a really bad mistake, how many wins you passed up. Like if you Checkmate somebody, there might have been like four or five times you could have done it sooner. So we're talking basically in that context where like you made a mistake, but then you keep going and you make another mistake so they kind of compound a little bit.”

Q: As a punter. What do you see yourself more in tune with, the defensive side of the ball or offense?

Cole: “I think that's kind of one of the things I love about being on the punt tea is it's the last play of offense and it’s the first play of defense. You get out there and its players from both sides of the ball, it's players that wouldn't normally be working together kind of working together. Honestly, I really think the punt is a beautiful play because it has so much to do with field position. It's teamwork, and it's just everybody coming together to do that. I think it's a little bit of both, field position impacts the game on both ends, because if we give the ball to the other team and they've got bad field position backed up, they punt and now our offense has a good field position. So it kind of works together. I think the most immediate impact is defense, but field position has always been a direct correlator to the way the game goes, because obviously if you've got to get less first downs to score, it’s going to be a little bit easier. That's good question. I think it's a special play, and I love being a part of it.”

Q: When you go from punter and then transition to defense, what's going through your mind? What’s the first thing that you're trying to observe and pick up on?

Cole: “Well, the first thing I'm doing is trying to find my hat. Go to the sideline, put my hat on, sit on the bench, grab some water. Then after that, that's just the opportunity to first figure out what went well, what didn’t go well.”

--“Oh coverage? Coverage is hoping someone else makes the play. But if you have to, you've got to do what you got to do. You go from protecting to then going out and covering and then everybody doing their job, filling their lanes. That’s the other thing I like about it too is it’s really a teamwork play, because if you give up one lane of space, that’s all you need. So, everybody’s got a job to do, everybody has a responsibility, and you can't really hide on special teams.”

Q: Do you prefer where you are the only punter on the team and take every punt during the preseason?

Cole: “It doesn't really matter to me, to be honest. The majority of the reps that I get are in practice and I'm going to be getting the same reps either way. So, to be honest with you, either way is good. If you got somebody else here, you've got someone else that you can kind of learn from, work with, compete against on a day-to-day basis, and if you don't, you've got all the reps and you get an opportunity to work on it. You kind of see the silver lining either way, and it's really not like a big factor either way.”

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