CLEVELAND – Raiders cornerback TJ Carrie has played safety before. For Concord De La Salle High. Not in college. Definitely not as a pro.

He surprised many by starting at safety during Sunday’s 27-20 victory over the Cleveland Browns at FirstEngery Stadium.

The Raiders made the move to help strengthen a weak secondary, and put quality cover men in more spots. With Carrie at safety, DJ Hayden and Neiko Thorpe started at cornerback with David Amerson as the No. 3 corner less than a week after getting claimed off waivers from Washington.

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Carrie wasn't half bad. He had four tackles and two passes defensed in an experiment untested prior to this week.

“He’s just a good, smart, tough football player,” Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio said. “I asked him to do that for us, and I think we saw results in the first half. It was a strategic move to utilize some of our key plays in certain situations. He’s a terrific player and a great young man.

“He took on the challenge and played the role we asked him to do very well. We like to draw plans for specific teams we’re playing. There will be some obvious carryover, but we like to make sure that we’re planning each week for a specific opponent.”

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It’s entirely possible that Carrie remains at safety next week at Chicago and into the future. Free safety Nate Allen is on short-term injured reserve with a torn MCL, and won’t be back until Week 10 at least.

Carrie has a lot of work on being so new to the position, but believes his crash course in playing safety got him ready enough to play well.

“Playing safety, it’s definitely different,” Carrie said. “The angles and the approach is new to me, but I think the guys really helped me adjust to it, especially during the game. The coaches really harped on alignment and assignments back there. I was just doing what the coaches asked of it. I’m glad it went well.”

Charles Woodson made the switch from cornerback to safety years ago, and understands the adjustment well. It’s not easy, but he thought the in-season switch worked out.

“He knew what he was doing,” Woodson said. “There were a couple of things we’ll work on in terms of communication, but I thought he did an excellent job considering it was his first time out there. “