Quarterback was the top priority for the Raiders this offseason. So, they cut Derek Carr and replaced him with Jimmy Garoppolo. After that, most would agree the attention should turn to the defense which was ranked in the bottom five last season.
Despite the many lists of best available free agent defenders, the Raiders went with exactly none of them, instead going with a few less heralded free agents.
The first wave featured three defenders — linebacker Robert Spillane, cornerback Brandon Facyson, and Marcus Epps.
The Raiders see all three as starters.
“We felt like with Marcus and Robert and Brandon we might have been able to get three starters at different levels of the defense there with a corner and a linebacker and a safety,” said head coach Josh McDaniels Monday at the owners meetings in Arizona.
Of those three, only Epps had more than five starts last season and it was his only season as a full time starter in his four-year career.
As for Spillane and Facyson they have never been full time starters. Spillane is expected to come in an start at middle linebacker, replacing Denzel Perryman who the Raiders allowed to leave in free agency. While Facyson returns to Las Vegas where he started nine games for the Raiders in 2021 — more than the rest of his career combined (eight).
The biggest splashes the Raiders were on offense with Garopplo and wide receiver Jakobi Meyers. The defense, the Raiders seemed to be going for quantity over quality. And most important affordability.
“We felt like we probably needed to add a quantity of players relative to either starts or depth,” said McDaniels. “And the tricky part is going in and based on the market of certain positions, it was going to be tougher to address position A and then you can’t really do much else because of the cost of it. We tried to weigh all those options out to see what made the most sense.”
Other defensive additions included DL Jordan Willis, DT John Jenkins, CB Duke Shelley, CB David Long, and S Jaquon Johnson. The five players combined for 12 starts last season with Shelley’s five starts leading the way. So, yeah, quantity is certainly one word to describe the Raiders defensive additions.
Meanwhile they let 2022 starters Perryman, CB Rock Ya-Sin, S Duron Harmon, and DT Andrew Billings leave in free agency. So, as of this moment it’s hard to see these change in starters as an improvement.
