The Las Vegas Raiders made a bevy of headline-grabbing moves this offseason, but their offensive line remains a major concern. Head coach Josh McDaniels must know something about the linemen currently residing on his depth chart that the rest of us don’t. In fact, the Raiders’ brain trust, led by Dave Ziegler, hasn’t made a significant move to improve the unit. Should Raiders fans expect any changes?
Unless you consider cutting Alex Leatherwood’s addition by subtraction, that’d be the biggest move the Raiders have made with regard to the O-line. In fact, the unit is now listed as having eight bodies. Luckily for the Raiders, several of the linemen are versatile and can play more than one position. Nevertheless, that notion doesn’t put fans’ concerns regarding this unit to rest. No big-name tackles were added via free agency, and none were acquired via trade recently.
Josh McDaniels doesn’t foresee a major addition to the Las Vegas Raiders’ O-line
Speaking to the media recently, McDaniels was asked about the possibility of bringing in a ninth lineman. As previously noted, the current roster only has eight linemen.
“I don’t anticipate at any point in time – I don’t have an expectation at this point. It’s eight plus whatever the practice squad is going to be, hopefully here in the next so many minutes we’ll be able to find out exactly how that all sorted out and everything else. Certainly, you don’t want just a lineman on the team for practice purposes, etc., you’re going to need more depth, which we’ll have. But when it’s right, when it’s necessary, when it’s the right person, when we feel like it’s the right thing to do for the team, then we would put somebody up.”
Should Raiders fans be concerned?
McDaniels made a fair point; you don’t want to add a body just for the sake of it. It’s counterproductive, and you take up a roster spot for a potentially more important group or one in need of reinforcement. From the outside looking in, you’d think that the O-line could use exactly that, reinforcements. Clearly, McDaniels is comfortable rolling with this current group minus Leatherwood.
“If we felt like the right thing to do was to not do that and carry them on the practice squad and then approach the roster that way, then we would do it. No preset expectation of when or if that will change, we’re just going to kind of go through it here the next few days, and then Dave [Ziegler] and his crew – it will be it’ll be a continual process as we go through the year.”
If there’s one aspect to all of this, it’s that you never see Ziegler coming. Most of his major moves have come to the surprise of most folks. This new regime keeps things close to the chest. If a move comes, it’ll come out of nowhere, if at all, and not anytime soon, barring an injury.
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