"Everyone talks about what kind of a camp they had," Turner said. "That's good, but I want to see it transfer from practice to game."

--Second year tight end Teyo Johnson was shocked and dismayed to discover he had slipped to fourth on the depth chart. He blamed it all on a Reebok-NFL sponsored trip to China in June.

"I made every mandatory thing, I even made workouts on my own in February, so when I approached the coaches about this opportunity to go to China and represent the NFL and the Raiders, they said we'd rather you not go but we're not going to stop you.

"When I came back I was fourth on the depth chart. That was in early June. That's the reason. It's just gone without saying. If I'm the fourth best tight end on this team, I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know why I was a second round pick."

Last week his disappointment boiled over when he got into a fight with teammate Akbar Gbaja-Biamila and was banished to the sideline for the remaining 45 minutes of that day's practice.

"It's been that kind of a camp," he said, clearly downcast.

Coach Norv Turner insisted there was nothing to Johnson's claims. He said the China trip had nothing to do with Johnson's status, which he said was not as it appears. However, Turner was noticeably agitated when Johnson drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the opener for doing pushups after catching a first down pass that covered 36 yards.

"Teyo is not fourth string," Turner said. "He's getting equal opportunities with the other guys and he's going to continue to (do so)."

That did not correspond with the team's official depth chart on the flip card for the first two games. So, what is his status, really?

"That is almost impossible to answer," Turner said. "I am not avoiding it. We have four tight ends that can play. We are going to play four tight ends through this preseason. There is great competition."

In the Raiders' second exhibition game, there was only one pass completed to a tight end. It was to Johnson, but it was for a mere two yards.

--Rookie linebacker Andre Sommersell, AKA Mr. Irrelevant (the last pick of the draft) got a dose of what can happen when a rookie doesn't cooperate with what veterans call "rookie initiations" (read hazing).

"He said he wasn't going through any rookie initiations, that he was beyond that and there wasn't going to be anybody touching him," Teyo Johnson said.

That offended the sensitivities of the vets and their response was severe. The entire team surrounded Sommersell, rolled an ice chest up to the north goal post, stood him atop it, strapped him to the goalposts with duct tape, attached a dunce cap (an orange pylon) to his head, gave him an icewater bath, sprayed him with hot balm, sprinkled talcum powder on him, squirted shaving cream on his face and then left him to marinade in the hot Napa sun.

"To have him sing would have been irrelevant," Johnson said. "How are you going to tell Ted Washington that you ain't going to put your hands on me? I just don't understand that part."

Eventually, Sommersell freed himself and stalked off the field in a rage, muttering something about how they couldn't do what had just been done to him.

Meanwhile, Robert Gallery managed to escape the initiation everyone thought was forthcoming -- the shearing of his shoulder length hair. Instead, veterans shaved vertical slots in his eyebrows and an unusual beard trim -- the left side was taken away altogether and the right side was trimmed halfway so that he had one sideburn interrupted by a shaved space followed by half a muttonchop.