Raiders Special Teams Coordinator Joe DeCamillis Praises New Kickoff Rules & Player Competition

Mon, Aug 3, 2026

Video Transcript

He's a guy that there's not many.

If you asked everybody on this team, hey man, how many guys have blocked punts, there's maybe 2 or 3 guys on the whole team that have blocked the punt in an NFL game, and he's one of them.

So, uh, that's good to have.

And then he's just been a great, um, sounding board for the young guys too because he's already showed them how to work, how to do things the right way.

So, really, really pleased with him.

One of my biggest things that I like to say is closer is better.

We had a lot of penalties in that two-minute period to backed him up and when he hit the ball, we needed to hit right there.

So, uh, we'd like to get that one over, but other than that, I mean, he's had a great offseason, a great camp so far.

Uh, we just got to keep him in the right groove and, and hopefully get him back to where he was when I had him in LA.

What do you want to see from in order to earn a roster spot.

OK, to get a roster spot for Conte, uh, he's in the competition, so he's got to, you know, do a great job there.

But the great thing about his situation is, um, in the, uh, international part of it, there might be an extra spot for him depending upon how it is.

So hopefully he can show enough, which, you know, knock on wood, I hope he keeps showing what he's showing right now and hopefully we'll get a chance to keep him at the end of camp, which would be great.

Would you say Con Con is pushing Matt?

Yes, yes, I would.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a legitimate competition.

They, you know, they say that though, but Uh, I was in the league for about 30, this is my 35th training camp, 35 years in the league.

So a lot of times when they put that rule in, I was in a lot of those meetings to put that rule in, so I've seen it before.

I had a bunch of NFL coaches, head coaches call me, Hey, Joe D, what would you do with this, uh, play?

And at that time when I was in college, I told them, you guys figure it out, but.

We've done a lot of work on it and uh I think, you know, having Marquise here is gonna obviously help, um, so that'll be great, but formationally, there's some things that they did differently, uh, taking a couple more guys off the ball, um, you know, you just really, it's a different play than what the old kickoff was because it happens so much faster.

So getting off of blocks, getting onto blocks, and then having the right track as a, as a returner is really, really important in this play.

I know you were able to deflect the question when you were in college, I guess, but what do you think of it?

Do you think, do you like what it's done?

Oh yeah, I love it because that's part of the reason I went to college because at that time we were kicking every ball out of the end zone.

So now, instead of having 35 plays a game in the kicking game, you eliminate 10 plays and, uh, you know, that's frustrating.

I don't, I don't like to just sit there and kick the ball off in the end zone and go, oh yeah, that's great.

I mean, that's, you know, that's not what football is in my opinion.

You get better at blocking and tackling when you do that.

So a lot of the young guys that are out there are gonna get better as football players.

You've, you've experienced a lot of training camps.

Clint is now going through his first one.

Just what have you seen from him and his leadership in kind of running a tight operation?

Yeah, I think what you said is a tight operation.

He's , um, that guy's all business.

I mean, like he, that's just, I think our team has taken that over too.

Like when you look at it, uh, it's a, it's a business type atmosphere, um, but the guys are still having fun, so that's hard to accomplish, and I think he's doing that right now.

He's been unbelievably organized.

Uh, I couldn't be more impressed with him right now, uh, from what he's done so far, but obviously we're all in the honeymoon stage and we're all 10, and we gotta get going.