Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
The Raiders have had an absolutely baffling offseason, IMO.
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I think you have to wait for the draft to come to any conclusions. If they draft a RT in the first few rounds things will start making more sense. The only move I didn't care for was overpaying for Drake. The Raiders had the most expensive offensive line in the NFL and according to pff was only the 24th best last season so they weren't getting what they were paying for. Gabe Jackson was kind of overpaid and wouldn't take pay cut so not really surprising as Raiders fans have been discussing him being cut for a few years now. Trent Brown is one of the laziest, least motivated players I have seen since Haynesworth and it was a foregone conclusion he would be gone. Hudson was a surprise but while he was really good at pass blocking his run blocking was not great and the Raiders really struggled running on short yardage last season especially in goal to go situations and they are looking for more push from the OL. Cable and Gruden really like Andre James and think he could play that position at less than half the cost so really even if the OL performance doesn't improve over 2020 they will have invested much less salary cap to the unit enabling them to bring in a guy like Ngakoue.
I don't sip the Gruden kool aid so I'm not doing cartwheels here as after an 8-8 season he's made so many changes to that it's hard to tell if the Raiders got any better or worse. I don't know if the addition of Ngakoue is going to result in the Raiders actually getting hands on opposing QB's or if Gus Bradley can turn around one of the worst defenses ever into even a mediocre defense overnight so it's just wait and see at this point. Offense will probably be top 10 again but after that who knows?