The latest admission by head coach Jon Gruden and general manager Mike Mayock of making a huge mistake in free agency two years ago came Tuesday with the Raiders trading right offensive tackle Trent Brown. The trade of Brown to the New England Patriots freed up $14 million in salary-cap space for the Raiders, while
Raiders trade OT Trent Brown, increase salary-cap space to $36M
Steve,
The list of candidates to potentially replace Brown at RT doesn’t inspire confidence. Raiders should have definitely parted ways with Brown yet now there’s a gaping hole at RT, not to mention replacing Jackson.
Defense was the core focus this off-season now Raiders are adjusting their resources to address the offensive line. The need to continue to free up cash to get a veteran RT since it would be a tall order to draft a lineman and expect them to be plug and play.
There’s a good reason for Raiders to reshuffle the OL – run blocking was quite poor in 2020 and, as a consequence, Jacobs was well below his 2019 performance. Considering that Brown barely played and that Jackson’s pass blocking was atrocious in 2020, they can get a few solid, proven offensive linemen that would provide upgrade at those positions while opening the cap space quite a bit:
– Matt Feiler (29, PIT, 16 pressures allowed over 13 games and 848 snaps, filling in due to OL injuries at LG in 2020, while in prior years he excelled at RT, allowing pressure on only 2.5% of snaps, ranked at RT by PFF in 2019 as 4th in pass protection and 10th overall) or Rick Wagner (31, GB, 16 pressures allowed over 13 games and 608 snaps, all but 20 as RT) would be a very solid replacement for Brown at the right tackle for just $5 – $7 mm.
– Oday Aboushi (30, DET, 11 pressures allowed over 12 games and 622 snaps in 2020, 90% at RG, 10% at LG) or Germain Ifedi (27, CHI, 25 pressures over 16 games and 1066 snaps in 2020, 60% at RG, 40% at RT) are very solid right guards with versatility to play other OL positions that could be signed in the neighborhood of $5 – $7 mm.
They would provide a great deal of positional flexibility to handle potential injuries and saving $10 – $14 mm in cap space. Denzelle Good could, and should, be re-signed for around $4 – $5 mm to ably fill in for Incognito (who, while better when fit, would be a risk given his age and the nature of his injury), saving around $1mm.
This way, Raiders could revamp their OL with the total net cap saving of around $11 – $15 mm to be used toward shoring up the defense.
For example, that should be about enough to address one of the most pressing defensive needs – free safety – by signing John Johnson III (26, LAR, only 7 yards-per-reception and 12% of passes defended) who is the best free safety available (with Simmons, Maye and Marcus Williams tagged).
Editing error: it should read – Jackson’s run blocking was atrocious…
Gotta love how we call these “colossal blunders”. So easy to do after the fact in hindsight. We all cheered the decisions when they were made. It suggests we have buffoons in charge, which, while some might hold that sentiment, is far from the truth. If the players had performed as their records had suggested they would, we’d be raving about the decisions rather than mocking them. How much is bad luck vs a bad decision?
They become colossal, Matt, when $80 million is paid for two seasons for a guy that had never been a No. 1 receiver, for a player that the Raiders immediately played out of position and wasn’t viewed as valuable enough for a Super Bowl team to keep, and a player that already had a history of work ethic and condition questions.
I believe what Matt was saying… The pundits, columnist, and the general media were all in solid praise for what Oakland was able to accomplish. Williams was not signed to be the number 1 receiver – that role was to go to AB. Now amazingly.. the colossal mistake as you called him performed exactly like a number one until he was injured. What was even more impressive was that after all of the preseason practices and games, the entire offense had to be revamped right before game 1. Like so many before him, Williams unfortunately couldn’t get past the injury bug. Brown seemed like he had finally realized the talent he was wasting by being fat and lazy. He showed in New England that he could not only be counted on but was trusted with protecting Brady’s blindside. He was an absolute stud for most of his first year until injury struck. Nobody will ever know what happened after that.. He suddenly reverted back to his old ways it seemed. Injuries upon missed practices, upon whatever excuse he had for that week. Did the Raiders gamble when they made him the highest paid tackle – of course. They gave the young man the benefit of the doubt and believed that he had turned his career around. They saw what their O line would look like with Miller on the left and Brown on the right. Their vision was correct but the gamble still didn’t pay off. The reason why it failed was exponentially more on Brown than the Raiders ability to evaluate his talents. Colossal mistake? Hardest part of evaluating talent is trying to figure out what’s inside a man. Who could have guessed he really was the lazy turd that played for SF and not the player coming over from NE. Joyner – you hit the nail on the head. He wasn’t good from day 1. That’s on them.
When Mariota is released, I’d like to know who will be DC’s backup. My personal choice would be Alex Smith, just released by WFT. I think he would be a fantastic addition to the QB room. It won’t take him long to study up in understanding the Gruden O-playbook, because it is not a whole lot different from the system Reid uses in KC. He would certainly bring a level of confidence of having a solid, quality backup for DC. Yes, there would be angst regarding the leg injury he suffered, but Smith more than proved his doubters wrong, 67% pass completion, 5-1 record, 2020 Comeback Player of the Year. Al probably would give him that long look, probably would make him an offer.
Something to think about. He would certainly cost less than keeping Mariota.