Raiders defensive end Justin Tuck is looking forward to his first meeting with head coach Jack Del Rio.



Tuck, in an interview with a New York-New Jersey based ESPN radio affiliate, knows Del Rio only by reputation.

“I don’t know a lot about him, honestly,” Tuck said. “I know him as a football guy. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk to him. I’ve talked to a lot of guys who played for him and everyone pretty much says the same thing _ he’s a great football mind, especially on the defensive side, which definitely excites me.

“And that he’s going to be the type of guy you’re going to enjoy playing for. I’m looking forward to meeting him and sitting down and finding out what the future holds in store for us as Raiders.”

Tuck sees the offseason as crucial to the Raiders development.

“The biggest thing for us this offseason is to have all these guys together in OTAs and offseason working and building that chemistry that I thought we built a little bit at the end of the season,” Tuck said.

Asked why the Raiders weren’t as competitive as he had hoped, Tuck said, “We weren’t consistent. We had some games there where we played pretty good football but weren’t able to come out with victories like New England and Seattle, but we had games where we looked like we had no clue what we were doing, like St. Louis and Denver.”

Tuck, who will be 32 when the 2015 season begins, is in the second year of a two-year, $11 million contract. He is due $3.35 million in salary, has a $1.5 million roster bonus and a $150,000 workout bonus for a salary cap number of $5 million. In his first season with the Raiders, Tuck had five sacks, an interception and two fumble recoveries in 15 starts, battling a knee injury for part of the season.