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Hardcore NFL dorks know Nnamdi Asomugha, the Raiders cornerback and former first-round pick. Casual observers have no idea who he is, though. Most of that has to do with playing in Oakland, a team with only a handful of wins since their success in the early part of this decade.

Despite the offensive foolishness that plagued the team last year during it's march to two wins, the defense has been a steadying force. According to Football Outsiders, Oakland ranked last in the league in offense last season, while the defense was ninth. In the NFL. Pretty astounding, really. Hats off to defensive coordinator Rob Ryan for putting together such a formidable unit amid all the chaos of the Art Shell-led Raiders.

Now, a year later, the team has a new head coach, a lot of new faces, and a seemingly new attitude (even if the results, thus far, have remained unchanged). One of the guys who's helping to change the losing culture is Asomugha. Not so much by what he says, but by the way he prepares himself.

"I wish we had 53 guys like that," Kiffin said, "because that's really a dynamic competitor and a guy that, as you follow his career, didn't come in and have great success right away. It's a classic example of people that do that, come in and struggle a little bit, and they continue to make themselves better, and they work on their weaknesses as opposed to, as you look around, guys that come in, they're underachievers, and have all the accolades and play well right away and never improve or decline.

"Those are the type of guys we're trying to find, and we're very lucky to have him and, hopefully, we'll have him for a long time."

Asomugha was a safety for most of his college career, so the transition to cornerback in the NFL was a slow one. But after some in-house tutorials from Rod Woodson last year, things finally clicked. The Raiders' D is easy to overlook given all the other stuff going on, but guys like Asomugha, Fabian Washington, Michael Huff, Kirk Morrison and Thomas Howard -- all young, fast, and smart -- are looking to change that.