Through the first couple days of camp, there seems to be a consistent rotation of defensive tackles. Two of them are returning starters Adam Butler and Jonah Laulu. But getting his share of first team snaps as well is second year man Tonka Hemingway.
The 2025 fourth round pick was out there with Laulu for the first play of the day while Butler saw some second team reps.
Obviously this spells good things for Hemingway's chances of taking a step up in his second season, especially with his former defensive line coach as the new defensive coordinator.
Rob Leonard described Hemingway using two words “Maturity. Consistency."
Strong praise for the 24-year-old defender considering those are often areas where players struggle early in their careers.
"He
has done everything right, from what he controls from the offseason," Leonard continued. "Learned a lot of good routine from Maxx. It's been fun to watch him develop as a man, as a player, now he's got to prepare to put pads on.”
The position in which Hemingway finds himself is one he set up based on his play late last season.
After being inactive for much of the first half of the season, he played in a couple games and then was sat down again for weeks 12 and 13. After that, he broke out. caming on strong down the stretch to put up four sacks and eight combined tackles in the final five games.
That earned Tonka his shot and so far he has gone about keeping it.
This article originally appeared on Raiders Wire: 'Consistency, maturity' has earned Raiders 2nd year DT 1st team reps
