2024 Las Vegas Raiders

Don Wassall

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The 2023 Raiders began the season with 7 White starters but just 12 total on the 53 man roster. This year they start 8, while the total on the roster has increased nicely to 18. There also 7 Whites on the practice squad.

And this team has some excellent White players and exciting young talent. TE Brock Bowers is the very rare White player who is being referred to as a “generational talent.” The most recent tight end given that description was Kyle Pitts of the Falcons, who has been far from exceptional in the NFL, but in the case of Bowers it will be very surprising if he doesn’t turn out to be a megastar. Fast and super-athletic, as many observers have said he could play and excel at tailback and wide receiver as easily as he does at tight end and it’ll be a shame if Las Vegas doesn’t fully utilize his skill set all over the field. While that hasn’t happened yet, Bowers is off to a great start with 15 catches already in his first two NFL games, which is especially impressive given that many top TEs have gotten off to sluggish starts.

Running back Dylan Laube out of small school program New Hampshire was selected in the sixth round of this year’s draft and has received nothing but rave reviews, surprising veteran CFers who are used to the media ignoring or writing off overachievers at the taboo positions, especially those from small programs. Laube would seem to be a natural as a third down receiving back who has the ability to run well if called upon, but was a healthy scratch for the new season’s first two games, indicating he may serve a racial apprenticeship in his rookie season. However, injuries at running back are frequent and it’s too early to make a definitive judgment on how Laube will be used or not used in 2024.

Drafting Bowers in the first round quashed the hopes of DWFs that the Raiders would go with an upsider at quarterback, which left savvy veteran Gardner Minshew and second year man Aidan O’Connell to battle for the starting job, with Minshew winning the competition. O’Connell has a lot of talent but is less proven than Minshew, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him starting some games again this season depending on whether or not the team is in the playoff hunt.

Second year tight end Michael Mayer out of Notre Dame also starts. He was an early second round pick in ’23. While not possessing the elite receiving ability of Bowers, Mayer is a very solid all-around talent and gives the team a topnotch one-two at the position. Bowers played 68% of the snaps in each of the season’s first two games while Mayer played 57% and 62%.

Harrison Bryant, a fourth round draft pick by Cleveland and a Mackey Award winner who spent four seasons in that Caste wasteland, is the third tight end.

The left tackle is Colton Miller, a first round pick out of UCLA in 2018 who is the anchor of the offensive line. Fun fact: Miller set the Combine record for the broad jump by an o-lineman at 10’ 1”.

Cody Whitehair starts at left guard, with Andre James the starting center.

Vegas drafted Jackson Powers-Johnson in the second round in 2024 after Powers-Johnson won the Rimington Trophy as the best center in the FBS in 2023. He currently backs up Whitehair and James but the team obviously didn’t draft him to be a backup for long.

At left defensive end, Maxx Crosby is as good as it gets. I wrote in the Steelers write-up that T. J. Watt is the best defensive player in the league, but Crosby is right there with him. Crosby is long and lean and fast and tenacious and basically unstoppable. He has never missed a game in his first five years in the league and last year put up ridiculous stats – 90 total tackles to go with 14.5 sacks.

CFers have posted extensively about middle linebacker Robert Spillane, who was mostly treated as a joke by DWFs and the Pittsburgh sports media while with the Steelers for four seasons, highlighted by alleged NFL “expert” Matt Williamson on more than one occasion stating that Spillane “belongs nowhere near an NFL field.” The Raiders obviously thought differently and signed Spillane after the ’22 season as a free agent. All Spillane did after finally getting to start was make 148 tackles, 82 of them solo, adding 3.5 sacks and 3 interceptions in ‘23. But because he ran a 4.77 40 time he was never regarded previously as anything more than a “team mascot” type at best. Idiots.

The Raiders have had an interesting history from a Caste Football perspective. They were great in the 1960s and ‘70s and had numerous superstars at the positions that today’s “common wisdom” holds Whites aren’t good enough to play. Then beginning in the ‘80s and stretching well into the 21st century, founding owner Al Davis became infatuated with “speed,” resulting in many busts being drafted and the team going through a decades long dry spell briefly interrupted one season when they were blown out by Tampa in Super Bowl XXXVII. Many of those dry years the Raiders had the blackest or nearly blackest roster in the NFL.

That briefly changed when Mike Mayock was hired as GM and Jon Gruden as head coach after the 2018 season, to the point that the Raiders started 4 Whites on defense one season. But Gruden was “canceled” and Mayock canned, mainly because his “draft guru” status on the NFL Network translated poorly to the NFL itself, resulting in terrible first round picks such as Alex Leatherwood and Clelin Ferrell.

Now the team has a Black head coach in Antonio Pierce who seems fair by the standards of the NFL such as they are, and the GM is Tom Telesco, who spent 11 seasons as the GM of the Chargers, not known during that time period as one of the more relatively White friendly teams, so we’ll see what the future holds. For now the Raiders are a team to root for.

QB: Gardner Minshew, Aidan O’Connell
RB: Dylan Laube
LT: Kolton Miller
LG: Cody Whitehair, Jackson Powers-Johnson
C: Andre James
RG: Jordan Meredith
TE: Brock Bowers, Michael Mayer, Harrison Bryant

DE: Maxx Crosby
WLB: Luke Masterson
MLB: Robert Spillane, Tommy Eichenberg (drafted in fifth round in ’24)

P: A. J. Cole
PK: Daniel Carlson
LS: Jacob Bobenmoyer

Practice Squad: WR Alex Bachman (kicked around all over the league, will he ever get a chance?), TE John Samuel Shenker, QB Carter Bradley (looked good in the preseason), S Phalen Sanford, C Will Putnam, T Dalton Wagner, G Ben Brown

IR: G Jake Johanning

Number of White Starters: 8
Number of Whites on 53 Man Roster: 18
Grade: D+/C-
 

Bucky

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Bachman keeping the tradition of screwing over talented White Wrs over and over again! Him and Kennedy are repeat caste victims..
 

Carolina Speed

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Wow! Bachman still around. He should've had a nice career going by now. I remember the Wake Forest Pro-Day when he and Greg Dortch were playing, who has been playing for the Arizona Cardinals and made around 4 Million dollars while Bachman's talent is wasted on the PS.
Alex Bachman WF Pro-Day, 6.0, 195lbs.. 4.47 40, 10' 7 BJ-White Guy
Greg Dortch WF Pro-Day, 5'7 170lbs. 4.59 40, 9'8 BJ -Black Guy
Really thought he would become a Julian Edleman type.
Meanwhile Dortch has been in the league on the 53 man roster for 6 years now.
Wonder what the issue is?
 
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Freethinker

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Phalen Sanford. A White safety who I somehow have not heard of. Played at Nebraska too, but I guess I’ve ignored that program once Adrian Martinez became the entrenched QB who couldn’t win any meaningful games.

I mentioned this elsewhere (Chargers preview maybe) but it’s interesting how all 4 AFC West teams are among the most palatable. Compare that to the AFC North or AFC South, where almost all the teams are coal miners. Highly doubt it’s anything more than a strange coincidence.

Also, Maxx Crosby is easily one of my favorite players. He’s synonymous with my fantasy football teams, as I have him in our dynasty league and pick him every year in my normie redraft league. Just a total beast who racks up stats while tormenting the opposition.
 

Don Wassall

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Good news for Tommy:

Raiders rookie LB Tommy Eichenberg to make first career start Week 5 vs Broncos​

We are five games into the 2024 season for the Raiders and they are already tapping into their rookie class to fill out their starting lineup. The most recent will be Round five linebacker Tommy Eichenberg who will start Sunday when the team travels to Denver.

“With Luke [Masterson] being out, Tommy will start,” said Pierce. “Tommy’s coming along. He got off to a great start in OTA’s and then training camp, and then we had a little hiccup there with the injury, but he’s bounced back really strong. We feel really good, he’s a good complement to Robert Spillane and he’s really good for our defense. Smart kid, he’s hard nosed. He’ll make some rookies mistakes, but he does play 100 miles per hour.”

Masterson was filling in for injured linebacker Divine Deablo who will miss another game with an oblique injury. Thus the Raiders digging deep into the linebacker corps for Eichenberg to get the start earlier than the Raiders intended.

 

Leonardfan

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https://www.nfl.com/news/raiders-be...cos-after-second-int-aidan-o-connell-in-at-qb

I like Minshew a lot and he will have a long career - he is a solid QB and one of the more colorful characters in a league that lacks them. I came away impressed with O'Connell while watching him at Purdue and down the stretch last year. He has a very good arm and is accurate as well. I'd like to see him get a fair shot at running this offense for the remainder of the season.

As for Antonio Pierce, I think this will be a repeat of the Mike Singetary stint in San Francisco. He came in late in the season as an interim head coach and the team finished promising but he already seems to have lost some control of the locker room and Davante Adams is becoming a distraction that should get traded. I am pretty confident he will advocate for a black quarterback in the draft as well - he wanted Daniels last year.

And there is this:

https://www.espn.com/college-footba...gets-show-cause-penalty-arizona-st-violations
 

Don Wassall

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Through Week 8 rookie Brock Bowers is second in the league in receptions with 52. Not second just among tight ends but all receivers. Only Garrett Wilson has more (60), but the Jets already played this week.
 

Snow Plow

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Don’t hold your breath but RBs Alexander Mattison and Zamir White did not practice today. If this continues, it sounds like the backfield would be shared by Ameer Abdullah and Dylan Laube. Laube fumbled his only carry this season, so this could be his chance to gain some confidence back.
 

Don Wassall

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We'll see:

Raiders beat writer Vincent Bonsignore writes Dylan Laube “is expected to be a big part of the game plan” in Week 12 against the Broncos.
Injuries to Zamir White (quad) and Alexander Mattison (ankle) will shoehorn Laube into Sunday’s rotation. The rookie sixth-round pick hasn’t been active since losing a fumble on his first career touch back in Week 6 against the Steelers, but it sounds like he and Ameer Abdullah could be slated for busy days against one of the league’s top defenses. Laube could offer some upside as a pass-catcher in Sunday’s AFC West showdown, but fantasy managers shouldn’t be flocking to put him in their starting lineups. If the matchup wasn’t challenging enough as is, the Raiders have been one of the worst rushing teams in the league all season. Pro Football Focus has them graded as the fifth-worst run-blocking team in all of football. Laube is better used as a stash rather than a start in Week 12, even with a tough week of byes on tap.
 

Bucky

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Ameer Abdullah still sticking around. In a league of washed up, has been runningblacks. What a joke.
 

Don Wassall

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White and Mattison are both listed as doubtful, which means it's very likely neither is active for the game. Both White and Mattison are below average running backs even when healthy. This could be Laube's big opportunity unless the even more substandard Abdullah is used as a workhorse. Kind of ironic that Laube will be playing against Denver's tough and relatively White friendly defense but regardless would be great to see him do well.
 

Carolina Speed

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Brock Bowers leading the NFL in receptions with 84. Should easily reach 100 and 1,000 yards. Probably a record for rookie TE's.
Hate it for Michael Mayer. Mayer on most teams would be a star TE, but with Bowers there, unless he's traded will never be able to live up to his full potential.
 

Don Wassall

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Brock Bowers leading the NFL in receptions with 84. Should easily reach 100 and 1,000 yards. Probably a record for rookie TE's.
Hate it for Michael Mayer. Mayer on most teams would be a star TE, but with Bowers there, unless he's traded will never be able to live up to his full potential.
Bowers is only 2 catches behind Sam LaPorta's rookie record with 5 games left to play so he should smash it. Mike Ditka still holds the record for yardage by a rookie TE with 1,076, which Brock should also easily surpass.

Mayer missed a good part of the season after he left the Raiders for "personal reasons," nothing more was specified that I'm aware of but it's a good sign that he returned to the team.
 
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