Jon Gruden: We want to get the party started with Antonio Brown

[Rusher]

Hard Knocks cameras are rolling at Raiders training camp, but they didn’t get any on-field footage from wide receiver Antonio Brown on Thursday or Friday.

Brown’s been out of practice the last two days. That comes shortly after Brown opened camp on the non-football injury list and a few days after he was activated from that list.

There wasn’t much practice time between Brown’s activation and his current absence from the field, so Brown’s camp hasn’t gotten to full speed yet. Head coach Jon Gruden is looking forward to seeing that change.

“I think we’re all disappointed,” Gruden said, via Lindsay Jones of TheAthletic.com. “We want to get the party started.”

The team hasn’t disclosed the reason for Brown’s absence, but Jones notes that Brown shared a picture of his blistered feet on social media a few days ago and that the team hoped he’d be back for at least limited work this week.

There’s a lot of time for the Raiders to party before the 2019 season comes to an end and it would be far more disappointing to start the bash only to see it end early because Brown has to miss time in the regular season. If this absence makes that unlikelier, it should wind up being worth it for the Raiders.