No position battle at the Las Vegas Raiders' training camp will be bigger than the one at quarterback between Kirk Cousins and Fernando Mendoza. But several other key competitions are taking shape as the Silver and Black return to the practice field, notably, one for the second boundary corner job.
Eric Stokes will start on one side, and veteran Taron Johnson will undoubtedly man the slot for Rob Leonard's defense. But who will line up opposite Stokes on opening day is very much up for grabs, and there appeared to be two main challengers for the gig: Darien Porter and Jermod McCoy.
However, another dark horse candidate is working his way into the light for the Raiders at training camp: Hezekiah "Zeke" Masses. After not being selected until Round 5 on Day 3 of the 2026 NFL Draft, Masses is now making a serious push for the starting cornerback nod in Las Vegas.
Zeke Masses earns 1st-team reps at CB during Raiders' training camp
Masses mixed in with Porter for some first-team reps at the end of mandatory minicamp, but not all the veterans were still participating by that point. So, while this was undeniably a great sign for the late-round draft pick, it needed to be taken with somewhat of a grain of salt.
Most fans expected McCoy to be the greatest threat to the incumbent Porter's job if he arrived at camp healthy, and that those two and Stokes would see all of the reps on the boundary. According to various reports from Day 1 of summer practice in Las Vegas, though, that simply wasn't the case.
Raiders.com's Levi Edwards noted in his post-training camp takeaways that Masses actually began the team period with the first-string defense. And although this doesn't mean he has been coronated as the starter, it means quite a bit more that he earned these reps with all 91 players on the field.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal's Sam Gordon corroborated Edwards' report, as did Ryan McFadden of ESPN and The Athletic's Sam Warren. McFadden and Warren also noted that McCoy did not play with the 1s on Wednesday, rolling exclusively with the second and third-team defenses.
Now, Klint Kubiak and John Spytek both acknowledged that, while McCoy is out there with a clean bill of health, he hasn't played football in a long, long time. Rushing him out there and throwing him into the fire would be malpractice, so that could potentially explain why Masses leapfrogged McCoy.
But it still stands as a major vote of confidence for Masses that the Raiders trusted him enough to be out there with the first team at all. Porter is still young and needs reps, and Decamerion Richardson has been in the building for three offseasons now. Either of those players could have gotten the nod.
Las Vegas chose Masses to get some burn with the top group, though, seemingly in a rotation with Porter, so the coaching staff clearly has more faith in him than most of the fanbase expected when he was drafted in the heart of Day 3.
Let's hope that Masses keeps stacking days, as a team can never have too many good, young defensive backs. This becomes especially true when one factors in that Leonard is likely to dial up the pressure and will need the secondary to hold up their share of the bargain on the back end.
It would be unwise to say that Masses is the answer right now, or even an answer, but the young player is off to a great start.
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