Jack Del Rio: ‘Embarrassing’ that Raiders play on baseball field during first month – CBSSports.com

The Raiders are still more than two years away from moving into a shiny new stadium when they relocate to Las Vegas, but until then they will continue to play at the Oakland Coliseum, a venue they share with Major League Baseball’s Oakland A’s. This means that for the month or so the two seasons overlap, the Raiders play their home games on a field that includes a baseball diamond. The infield dirt runs from one 20-yard line to the other and at its widest point reaches more than halfway across the football field.

Raiders coach Jack Del Rio does not consider this a homefield advantage.

“I don’t know if I’d call it a benefit,” he said, via the Las Vegas Review-Journal‘s Michael Gehlken. ‘It’s the way it should be. It should be grass all the time. Hopefully, they’ll get that rectified going forward because frankly it’s a little embarrassing to play on the cinder block. We’ll tolerate it when we have to, but we’re definitely looking forward to having a full field of grass.”

The Raiders played three of their first four games on the road — all on grass surfaces — and only had to deal with the dirt infield for their Week 2 get-together with the Jets. But all the travel — to Tennessee in Week 1, to Washington in Week 3 and to Denver in Week 4 — is another important storyline of the 2017 season: The Raiders will travel nearly 33,000 miles this season, more than any other team (by contrast, the Steelers will travel 6,800 miles, lowest in the league). The Raiders also have four trips of at least 2,000 miles, and teams traveling that distance have a winning percentage of .364.

Good news: The Raiders will host the Ravens on Sunday on a field that is completely covered by grass.

Better news: Quarterback Derek Carr, who was initially expected to miss 2-6 weeks with a back injury, might only miss one game