In the team’s win in Baltimore on Sunday, linebacker Divine Deablo suffered an oblique injury as well as a concussion that has kept him out of practice this week. Friday head coach Antonio Pierce said Deablo “probably will not play” in Sunday’s home opener against the Panthers.
Stepping up for him will be Luke Masterson.
“Luke is that third wheel. If we had a tricycle, he’s that third guy you could kind of plug in at both MIKE and our Money and WILL linebacker positions. With Deablo more than likely probably will not play, Luke will be there, he’ll step up and he’ll do a good job. He’s started and played in a lot of games over his three years as a Raider. And he’s somebody who’s really dependable. He’s one of our core special teams guys and really a true hard hat mentality player that we need for a game like this.”
Masterson is the only other linebacker on this team besides Deablo and Robert Spillane to have played any snaps on defense (16).
No doubt there are some Raiders fans who would like to see rookie linebacker Tommy Eichenberg get a shot to see what he can do, but he’s just coming off an injury that had him miss a lot of time, so he’s not ready to be thrown in there at linebacker just yet.
“He’s getting there,” Pierce said of Eichenberg. “Tommy missed that month in training camp and a little bit of preseason, so he’s getting closer and closer. I just want to see a little bit more on special teams before I make that decision.”
In total, the Raiders have a whopping seven linebackers on the roster. The others are Amari Burney, Amari Gainer, and Kana’i Mauga. All three have played exclusively on special teams this season.
