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Raiders’ Darien Porter offers sharp critique of rookie year, ready for big leap Darien Porter spent a lot of time this offseason looking back on his rookie year with the Las Vegas Raiders. The cornerback was not always thrilled with what he saw. “I was not happy with how I played all the time last year, and there were times where I knew I had to be better, and I knew I could be better,” he said after Sunday’s training camp practice at the team facility. “So, it was a lot of reflecting for me on what my weaknesses were, and really trying to dive into that throughout OTAs, throughout mandatory minicamp, and now throughout training camp. It was a lot of self-reflecting, a lot of self-scouting, honestly.” The result has been a different version of Porter out on the field as he tries to hold off rookie Hezekiah Masses for the starting job opposite Eric Stokes. Porter has mostly looked sharp and confident, though he may be the last person who is going to accept that analysis. “No one’s going to be harder on me than I’m going to be on myself,” he said. “It’s walking a fine line between, yeah, obviously you have to keep pushing yourself, but it gets to the point where you feel like you never satisfy even yourself, no matter what. So, I’ve had to learn to balance that. But like I said, no one’s going to be harder on me than I am on myself because I want to be perfect. I’m a perfectionist, and you play an imperfect game and an imperfect position. So, it’s a balance for sure.” The growth is more evident to everyone else. Porter has great size and athleticism, but he is still raw to the defensive side of the ball having played receiver through most of his college career and really having only started at cornerback for one year before being drafted at corner last year by the Raiders. He admitted the growing pains of trying to learn on the job while sometimes getting beat by NFL receivers weighed on him at times during his rookie season. But that experience has made him stronger and more determined to get it right. He believes he made big strides in his footwork and positioning that are showing up in practice now. “When you make a couple plays, the confidence just keeps stacking,” he said. “And I feel like throughout camp, I’ve made plays and Coach (Klint Kubiak) has put me in position to do that. So, the confidence just keeps building from there.” Kubiak expects big things from Porter in his second season. “I think when you look at the NFL, so many players make big jumps Year 1 to Year 2,” Kubiak said. “He has the ability to do that. I think he’s a guy, I said this about Fernando (Mendoza), that is an ascending player that we are counting on, and he’s just going to keep getting more confident.” One of the reasons for optimism is that Porter has the institutional knowledge of having gone through an NFL season and what that entails. Beyond providing the film to study and the experience on the field, Porter said the understanding of the rigors of the season and even the minutiae of the NFL schedule are helpful tools in continuing to build his game. “Obviously you’re going to train throughout the offseason, which I have,” he said. “But now it’s not so much of a surprise. You know what you’re getting into. So, a lot of emphasis on footwork but not doing too much to where you’re going to hurt yourself, being smart about it. But like I said, just knowing what you’re going to get out of a full long season really helps with the preparation.” While he has a new defensive coordinator and a new scheme to learn, there is some continuity. Rob Leonard was already on staff as defensive line coach, and Joe Woods was retained as defensive backs coach. Porter may be asked to play more press man, which he believes will really play to his strengths as a bigger corner. There are some other subtle differences in how he will be asked to play within this scheme, but Porter said the main objective can be boiled down quite easily. “There’s going to be some new things schematically, but as a cornerback, your rule is pretty simple: don’t let them catch the ball,” he said. “That pretty much stays the same.” Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.