Raiders expect loud, hard-hitting safety Abrams to bring physicality — but not too much

Abram captivated 'Hard Knocks' viewers in training camp, but missed almost all of his rookie season with a shoulder injury.

The Raiders had three first-round draft picks in 2019 — three players that were supposed to be the core of the team’s turnaround.

The first pick of that bunch, Clelin Ferrell, underwhelmed in year one.

The second, Josh Jacobs, was one of the finest running backs in the NFL his rookie campaign.

The third first-round pick picked up an incomplete grade.

There’s no doubt that safety Johnathan Abram made a great first impression with Raiders fans before his rookie campaign in 2019. His big personality and big hits — he’ll knock you out while smiling — was a throwback to the kind of players the Raiders had on their teams of lore. He’s even leaned into that comparison, even wearing longer jersey sleeves during practice in part as a nod to the late Raider great Willie Brown.

But in year two — in what he hopes is his first full season in the NFL — Abram needs to make that impression on the field. He needs to become not just a key player, but a leader in the Raiders’ re-tooled defense.

And he needs to do it while also reining in the thing that arguably defines him as a football player: that endearing but endangering aggression.

On top of the obvious necessities of having elite physical capabilities and a bunch of smarts, you have to be some level of crazy to be successful in the NFL. It’s a bloodsport, after all — every play features collisions that would put the average person in the hospital.

Abram no doubt has that crazy, the kind that can set a tone, an identity, for an entire defensive unit. The Raiders saw that crazy on Abram’s Mississippi State tape. It was a big reason why they drafted him in the first round.

Fans saw it on last year’s edition of the HBO documentary series Hard Knocks, where Raiders coach Jon Gruden had to pull the rookie aside to tell him to stop being so physical in practice.

Johnathan Abram hits too hard during practice pic.twitter.com/xKdsqGoec7

— anthony (@anthonyjosephh_) August 7, 2019

But neither the Raiders nor their fans were able to see it during the regular season, save for a quarter, last year.

By all accounts, Abram toned it down when going against his teammates in practice after the talking-to, but once the regular season started, he went full bore.

And a torn rotator cuff and labrum, picked up on a Week 1 first-quarter hit, landed Abram on season-ending injured reserve.

After he finished the game, of course.

“He probably got a little bit too reckless at times,” Gruden said of Abram after that game, before the full extent of the injury was known.

That incident has led Abram to take on a new motto going into this year.

“The best ability is availability,” he told the media on a video conference call Wednesday.

“I don’t think my biggest concern is rushing back to try to technically lay somebody out. “[It’s] just [about] being smarter this year.”

For many teams, the safety position is a bit of an afterthought, but it’s a focal point in Raiders defensive coordinator Paul Guenther’s Cover-4 and Cover-6 looks. Under Guenther, safeties need to be able to cover the middle of the field against the pass, identify and crash against the run, and even blitz on occasion.

It’s a lot to handle, as we saw for 15 games last year.

Abram, in theory, could be a perfect fit, though: A bigger, stronger, faster, and tougher version of George Iloka, Guenther’s strong safety on the successful and intimidating mid-decade Bengals defenses.

The Raiders defense arguably made strides in 2019 — there was nowhere to go but up — but you’d be hard-pressed to say they developed an identity worth keeping around.

Abram, alongside free-agent acquisition and fellow hard-hitter Damarious Randall, is expected to provide that identity from the back end in 2020.

Abram said he’s ready to handle the responsibilities that come along with that position because he was able to study the Raiders’ defensive concepts while sidelined last year.

“That was the biggest thing. Being able to understand the defense, seeing how the game plan changes week-in, week-out seeing the adjustments… Seeing the coaching points that were made and that showed up every single Sunday and just trust in it,” Abrams said. “Coach is going to give you things that he looks for, tendencies that tend to show up and you just have to trust it and go play.”

So, can Abram tame his wild side? Can he walk that fine, arguably arbitrary line between aggressive and reckless? Will he be able to fulfill his potential as an NFL safety if he plays with a restrictor plate? Can he trust himself?

Even with all the changes the Raiders made to the defense over the offseason, the fate of that unit in many ways rides on him answering in the affirmative on all four counts this season.