Prior to the Oakland Raiders taking the field for their Thursday practice, defensive coordinator Ken Norton, Jr., held his weekly press conference.
Here is what we learned from his time behind the podium.
San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers has a "mastery of the game."
"He's been pretty good for a long time. He has a great mastery of the game. [He] has a great mastery of his offense, mastery of his personnel around him and he has good feel for what he's doing, so it's important for us to really try to match up well and understand that he's pretty good. He's going to get his yards, but we have to do the best that we can to keep him out of the end zone."
The Chargers spread the football around offensively.
"They have a lot of talent. They're pretty good. They have a lot of talented skill positions. Obviously you have a quarterback who will throw it to them. It's important that you have guys who can catch the ball. They've shown that they can do that, and we have to spend this week of practice doing a really good job of matching that and plan our defense well to do the best we can to play them."
Norton also shared his thoughts about Chargers leading wide receiver Keenan Allen.
"He's pretty good. Anytime you watch pros, you want to watch them from Year 1 to Year 2 to Year 3 to watch them grow, watch their confidence, watch them go up and get the ball, to watch them get to the point where the ball is up in the air, it's yours. And you'll see that. He has a certain demeanor about him, a certain 'that's mine' about him that the good players have."
Per usual though, the Raiders focus remains squarely on themselves.
"Our focus is really on us. We can't worry about all our opponents all the time and what they're doing. We have to worry about our defense, our players, us running our zones and our man [coverages] and our pass rushing, putting that all together and combining it. We do a better job of watching us than we do watching them."
