After having a day off, the Silver and Black got back to work Tuesday.

Coming off their Allegiant Field practice last Sunday, the Raiders are currently trying to put themselves in the best spot available going into their first preseason game. The first unofficial depth chart was released Monday, as things are still shaping up early in this season.

Here's a few encouraging things I took note of during Raiders' practice Tuesday morning.

A sense of urgency

You could definitely sense that the preseason is around the corner in practice today.

Both sides of the ball had their fair share of moments today and were truly trying to get the best of each other. You could hear Head Coach Jon Gruden, while pacing the field back and forth as usual, yelling one-liners and demanding excellence from his players. It just seemed like the team as a whole brought a lot more seriousness to the field today, especially with the Seattle Seahawks coming to Allegiant Stadium this Saturday.

Defensive coordinator Gus Bradley also had a couple of moments where he had to get his defense fired up -- which leads into my next observation.

Great day for Raiders defense

The defense looked legitimate today.

Bradley had seen enough from his defense early in live practice. "Clean this [expletive] up," you could hear him scream at his defense after getting beat on a slant route.

And as soon as he did that, the defense turned it all the way up.

The defense had a fantastic second half of practice. They would go on to create at least five turnovers on the offense throughout practice today. The coverage was on point and the defensive line did a good job of creating pressure on Carr, Mariota and Peterman. The play of Clelin Ferrell, Trayvon Mullen Jr. and former UNLV standout Javin White stood out to me the most. It only further hyped me up to see the defensive unit Bradley puts on the field Saturday.

Trey Vegas

There has been a lot of competition at running back, as of late. The Raiders signed B.J. Emmons and Bo Scarbrough to help add more depth to the unit with Jalen Richard nursing a leg injury.

Nevertheless, Trey Ragas has continued to look impressive and had another good practice. He was seen catching a couple of checkdowns and picking up some decent yards after catch in the process. He also had an insane play in one-on-one tackling drills, in which he ran over a defender on a spin move. One of the more impressive moments of Training Camp so far.

Hopefully, the young UDFA from Louisiana-Lafayette can have a good preseason and make the roster, so he can take the nickname I've bestowed upon him.