A year ago at this time, most rookie minicamps had just wrapped up around the NFL. Those annual camps serve not only as an opportunity for draft picks to get their feet wet but also for undrafted players to sink or swim in what for many is their only shot at a childhood dream.
There are no rookie minicamps this year due to the pandemic, so things have come to a sudden stop for players who could have benefited the way A.J. Cole did in 2019. We checked in with the Raiders punter to look back on last year’s life-changing weekend. The rookie from North Carolina State grabbed coach Jon Gruden’s attention at the camp while there on a tryout and never let go, eventually beating out former draft pick Johnny Townsend for the job during training camp and finishing sixth in the league with 33 punts inside the 20-yard line.
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Cole, on the phone Monday, provided us a look at what rookie minicamp was really like for him — and for the players who won’t get to experience it this spring.
Cole actually didn’t meet Gruden until the second day of camp, after Gruden had heard good reports about Cole’s first day. (Cole kicked Friday and Sunday, as the Raiders didn’t want to wear him out.)
“Saturday, I am just catching balls from the long-snapper and Gruden — who I had had no interaction with — just walks right up to me,” Cole said. “He looks at me and says, ‘Hey … can you do the job?’
“I was caught off guard and I turned around and I was like, ‘Wait, what did you say?’
“And he was like, ‘I said, can you do the job?’
“And I looked at him and said, ‘Hell yeah.’”
“He said, ‘All right, we’re going to find out tomorrow. We’re going to put you in a punt set and we’re going to have everybody screaming at you and banging their helmets. And if you punt well, maybe you become a Raider.’ … So, I had 24 hours to mull that one over.”
Just 10 days prior, assistant special teams coach Byron Storer had first called Cole (before the NFL Draft) and said the Raiders would like him to compete for their starting job — if he didn’t get drafted or sign anywhere else as an undrafted free agent. Storer laid out the work that Cole would get in during the three-day camp as a tryout player, and Cole was excited about the opportunity as well as learning from longtime NFL special teams coach Rich Bisaccia.
Cole got into Alameda on Thursday night, took five minutes to let the pictures on the wall at the facility and the nameplates in the locker room sink in, and then hit his first couple of meetings.
Practices were Friday, Saturday and Sunday — “It was a beast,” Cole said, “a 72-hour football bender” — and there wasn’t a lot of bonding time between players. Plus, there is a cool group and not-so-cool group, so you also had to stay in your lane.
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“People are really in different categories, the guys that get drafted are in a different program than the guys who are still trying to get a contract,” Cole said. “And it goes so fast. By the time you learn everybody’s name, it’s over.”
The whole weekend was a fast-moving walkway toward Sunday’s punting showcase for Gruden, general manager Mike Mayock and the other rookies.
“There were 10 punts,” Cole said, “and Coach Gruden made this announcement first: ‘We got this rookie punter! From N.C. State! And he is coming in here and saying he wants to be a Raider! Well, we’re going to see what he can do.’”
Mayock still laughs at the memory.
“This kid was killing the ball,” Mayock told SiriusXM NFL Radio last week, “and Gruden couldn’t believe it, so at the end of the camp he brought the entire team up and he stood next to (Cole). And he had everybody screaming and yelling, and Jon was dropping his clipboard next to him as he caught the ball. He was doing everything he could. …
“And this is this kid’s whole life in these few punts, he ended up killing the ball. … Those are the kinds of kids your heart goes out to this year.”
Gruden even had one of the assistant coaches wave a hand in Cole’s face on a couple of the punts.
“He wanted to see if I was going to perform in a pressure situation or if was I going to fold,” Cole said.
Cole had fun with it, and the 10 kicks.
“Yeah, I hit them all pretty well,” he said. “The reaction after each one got louder and louder.”
And then the moment was over. Players walked off the field, and while Cole let it sink in, Bisaccia came over and told him that he wasn’t going anywhere.
“I had a 1 o’clock flight on Southwest back to Atlanta, and I was pretty excited about my A3 (boarding number) and having my choice of seats,” Cole said. “But then I was more excited about staying in Alameda.”
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Cole needed a physical, but that wasn’t available until Monday. He would sign a contract — three years for $1.76 million with a $2,500 signing bonus the only guaranteed money — after the physical. But as for Sunday afternoon, the Raiders told him not to announce anything yet since they still had to clear a roster spot.
So, Cole spent the next 10 hours on the phone telling his family members and friends the same story he just shared with us. Then he had a celebratory pizza delivered to the hotel and watched “Game of Thrones.”
Cole’s dad told him to enjoy the pizza but to keep the same mentality. He still had to make it from the 90-man roster to the 53-man squad, after all.
“He was like, ‘I know you know this, but now is when the real work really starts. You’re going to be in this rookie minicamp mode for the next year,’” Cole said.
“And that’s what it ended up being. That’s what the NFL is — there is no margin for error. You have to be on 24-7-365. Nobody cares if you’re having a bad day. You have to perform every single day. So it was really good to get my feet wet in that sort of experience.”
Cole feels bad for all of the players this year who won’t have a chance at a similar experience.
“It’s really unfortunate,” Cole said. “There is a really good chance that if I don’t have rookie minicamp last year that I never walk into an NFL facility. Nobody wanted to give me a contract and I had a job at IBM that I was set to start in August.
“I hate it for the guys that are going to be missing out, and I hope that they continue to train and that there’s an opportunity at some point for them to prove themselves.”
(Photo: Kiyoshi Mio / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
