Biggest surprises from cutdown day: Keyton earns a spot over Guyton, Wilkerson

6 moves from cutdown day that we didn’t see coming

With the preseason over, the Las Vegas Raiders had one final hurdle to get over before the start of the regular season; the NFL’s cutdown day.

The deadline has passed which means the Raiders have their initial 53-man roster and while there weren’t too many shockers, there were about five surprises with the coaching staff’s decisions that we didn’t see coming. Most have to do with how many players at specific positions Las Vegas ended up keeping.

Only 2 Quarterbacks

While it’s hard to argue that Nathan Peterman or Carter Bradley deserved a spot on the team, it is surprising that Antonio Pierce is choosing not to take advantage of the emergency quarterback rule.

On Monday, the NFLPA vetoed the rule change that would have allowed the third/emergency quarterback to come from the practice squad, meaning teams will have to keep three signal callers on the 53-man roster to take advantage of that rule.

However, the Raiders currently only have Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell on the active roster. So if Minshew and O’Connell get injured in the same game, the offense will have to put a non-quarterback (likely Jakobi Meyers) behind center.

An argument could be made that if the offense has to dip that far into the depth chart at the most important position on the field the team is screwed regardless. But, in that situation, it does feel like the odds of winning a game decrease without having a true quarterback.

Granted, the Raiders could scrounge the waiver wire or trade for another backup in the coming days to add that third quarterback. Also, the club is hoping Bradley clears waivers and returns to the practice squad, so they’ll at least have three quarterbacks in the building and someone to call up if Minshew or O’Connell have to miss a game.

Ramel Keyton Over Jalen Guyton, Kristian Wilkerson

Keyton made a handful of plays against the 49ers last Friday night, finishing with four catches for 76 yards and the highlight grab seen below. However, he had struggled with drops and hadn’t done much in the preseason until the end of that game, when San Francisco was digging deep into its depth chart.

Meanwhile, Guyton has strong ties to Tom Telesco dating back to their days with the Los Angeles Chargers, and the veteran wideout has experience on his side compared to the undrafted rookie. The latter could also be said about Wilkerson, who is a good blocker out wide and had a strong showing in the preseason last year.

But, Keyton reportedly played well during training camp and put up the impressive numbers above last weekend to earn the roster spot. Also, the 6-foot-3 wide receiver brings some size and contested catch ability that the position room was lacking toward the bottom of the depth chart.

Seven (7!) Linebackers

Patrick Graham has become known for only rostering a handful of linebackers. For example, in his previous two years with the Raiders, he’s kept just five linebackers on the initial 53-man roster. However, the team currently has seven backers heading into the 2024 campaign.

The biggest surprises at the position group were Kana’i Mauga and Amari Burney, but those two contribute on special teams and the new kickoff rule will place a bigger emphasis on open-field tackling.

All this being said, The Athletic’s Tashan Reed and Vic Tafur reported that Telesco told the media there will still be some roster tweaking going on over the next few days, indicating that the backers at the bottom of the depth chart still aren’t completely safe.

Only 3 Tight Ends

With how much 12 personnel Las Vegas is expected to use this season, it’s somewhat interesting that the team is only keeping three tight ends. Also, the offense doesn’t currently have a fullback on the roster so it was reasonable to believe that Luke Getsy might want to use an extra tight end to fill that role.

Granted, it’s not as if Zach Gentry, Cole Fotheringham or John Samuel Shenker did much during the preseason to deserve a roster spot. Tight end or fullback, could be another position where the front office and coaching staff look to bring someone in from the outside.

Charles Snowden, Elerson Smith Waived

Don’t get it twisted, Janarious Robinson outplayed Snowden and Smith over the last month to earn the fourth defensive end spot. However, the latter two still performed well in the preseason to warrant a fifth player at the position making the team. Smith was placed on the ‘waived/injured’ list, so maybe his health played a factor in the coaching staff’s decision.

Brandon Facyson makes it

While Las Vegas needs some experience at cornerback, Pierce said it’s been hard to evaluate Facyson since Facyson has been injured for just about all of training camp. That made it seem like he’d get cut, but the club opted to keep the veteran around.

That being said, just having experience isn’t a great value proposition, especially if you’re injured and can’t play anyway, so Facyson might still be on the hot seat if there’s another corner that was let go who the Raiders are interested in.