Answering Raider Nation’s questions for the week
I hope everyone enjoyed the Fourth of July and has a great holiday weekend! What better way to keep the vibes going than to dive into this week’s mailbag column, focusing on a 2025 season preview for the Las Vegas Raiders.
Q: Do you think Jakorian Bennett gets a look in the slot in camp and preseason? He doesn’t fit Pete Carroll’s mold for boundary corner size, but he’s not small by NFL cornerback standards
A: This is something I’ve been thinking about recently, and if Bennett is going to be working with the second team as a boundary corner, I don’t see why the coaching staff wouldn’t try him at nickel this summer.
As you pointed out, Bennett doesn’t fit the Carroll mold on the outside, but he does have decent size for a nickelback. Also, I think he has the quickness and change-of-direction skills to cover the shorter routes on the inside.
The two big issues with the third-year pro at slot corner are: he doesn’t have the experience at that spot, and his tackling.
According to Pro Football Focus, Bennett did take 228 snaps at nickel in college but was predominantly on the boundary with 1,305 snaps there. PFF also has him with 15 missed tackles at a 22.4 percent rate in the pros, and that was part of the reason he got benched as a rookie. With one less linebacker on the field in nickel personnel, defenses rely on the slot corner to provide run support and tackle, which isn’t his strong suit.
That being said, the experience portion can be solved by getting more reps in training camp, and Bennett should be working on his tackling regardless of what position he’s playing. Seeing as the Raiders have more questions than answers at nickelback, I don’t see why they wouldn’t at least try the Maryland product on the inside if he’s not going to start on the boundary.
Q: What do you think of trading for CB Jamel Dean (Tampa Bay)? Do you think Bennett could be part of a trade?
Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images
A: I like Dean as a player because he’s been pretty consistent throughout his career, earning PFF coverage grades between 72.5 and 78.9 in each of his six NFL seasons. That type of year-to-year consistency at cornerback is rare, and he’d be the best corner on the roster heading into training camp.
Dean’s contract is the only thing that gives pause about trading for him. According to Over The Cap, he’s signed through 2026 but would be a $13 million cap hit this year and $13.5 million next year. That said, the Raiders have plenty of cap space right now ($31.3 million) and in 2026 ($91 million), where money shouldn’t be too much of a deterrent.
So, I wouldn’t mind John Spytek swinging a deal with his old boss to bring in the veteran corner. However, I would like to see them hold onto a young guy like Bennett, and I could see him being part of the trade if the coaching staff doesn’t think Bennett can fit their system.
Long story short, I’d have no complaints if the trade is for a fifth-round or later draft pick, but I would have some pause if it means giving up a young talent.
Q: Should we expect Lonnie Johnson to be a starter against the Pats? His career stats suggest he’s not played many downs since 2021.
A: I’ll put it this way: if Johnson is starting for the Raiders, that’s a bad sign for the defense. He’s made 20 starts in six years, and one in the last three seasons for three different teams. Ideally, he’s just a special-teams guy.
Q: Which defensive backs are most likely to be starters in Week 1?
A: This depends on what the plan is for Bennett, but based on OTAs and minicamp, it’s trending toward Darien Porter and Eric Stokes at outside corner, Jeremy Chinn and Isaiah Pola-Mao at safety, and it’s anyone’s guess at nickel. I think Thomas Harper is most likely to take the nickelback snaps, but just about any defensive back on the roster has a chance to win that job.
After Germaine Pratt was signed, Carroll also hinted that the defense might have three starting linebackers (Pratt, Elandon Roberts and Devin White, presumptively) to begin the season. That would mean only four defensive backs “start”, and the defense uses nickel personnel (five DBs) as a sub-package on passing downs.
Q: Recently, it was suggested that the Raiders OL may be using a hybrid blocking scheme that features man blocking on the interior line and zone blocking at the tackles. Is this a common OL concept in today’s NFL? Do you think Chip Kelly is employing this technique to match the Raiders’ OL talent better?
Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images
A: This question stems from Lincoln Kennedy’s recent appearance on Upon Further Review with Eddie Paskal of the team’s website.
“What I’ve ascertained over the last couple of practices,” Kennedy said, “is that there is a high regard to use zone blocking scheme when it comes to the perimeter. But the interior, they want to use man blocking schemes, which I’m totally fine with. Being able to have that versatility, so that teams can’t pin down one type of scheme to try to defend against that.”
It’s a little confusing the way he worded it, but Kennedy is essentially saying that Kelly is using gap or man schemes when he wants to run the ball inside, and zone schemes when he wants to call outside runs. So, the entire offensive line will be blocking the same scheme on each play call; they’ll just be switching between gap and zone runs throughout the game to keep the defense guessing and force them to defend both types of plays.
This has become pretty common in the NFL recently, especially in the Shanahan coaching tree. Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay and Co. still use the outside zone concepts that made Kyle’s dad, Mike, famous. But they’ve pivoted toward more gap concepts when they want to run the ball between the tackles, especially with the emergence of duo over the last several years.
You might have heard duo referred to as “power without a puller”, meaning all the backside offensive linemen stay on the backside instead of pulling, and the offensive line as a whole moves in the opposite direction of the running back. So, duo is still in the gap run family, but it’s kind of a hybrid between the two schemes.
Running backs have more flexibility to bounce or cut back based on what the defense is doing on duo (similar to zone runs), whereas power or counter is more rigid with where the ball has to go since one or two backside blockers are moving/pulling to the frontside.
As a result, duo has become more popular because it can be a quick-hitting downhill run like a gap scheme, but also allows the offense to adjust if the defense is selling out to take away the between-the-tackles runs.
Circling back to the question, yes, there has been a push to be more versatile in the running game across the league, and a lot of gap run concepts have become more popular in recent years.
Q: Do the Raiders sign Von Miller?
A: At this stage, I get the feeling Miller will be one of those midseason signings if a Super Bowl contender suffers an injury to an edge-rusher or could use a pass-rusher off the bench. He’s 36 years old and hasn’t been quite the same since the ankle injury that forced him to miss the entire 2020 season. Additionally, he’s suffered a torn ACL since then.
So, I wouldn’t expect the three-time All-Pro to sign before training camp, and him coming to Las Vegas would be contingent on where the Raiders are in the playoff picture.
A: My sense is it’s primarily that they want to see how things look once the pads come on in practice. I think the Raiders want to take a closer look at guys like Bennett, Decamerion Richardson, Jordan Meredith, etc. in training camp, and then will make a judgment call on signing a veteran.
Right now, they don’t want to take away reps from young, developmental players. But if those guys aren’t up to snuff in training camp, then Spytek will start picking up the phone and calling guys like, *cough* Mike Hilton *cough*, and other veterans who are still available.
A: Dylan Laube is going to have a significant uphill battle to make the roster this summer. His best chance is by proving that he can be a valuable third-down back/pass-catcher out of the backfield and returner in the kicking game.
Ashton Jeanty, Raheem Mostert and Sincere McCormick will enter camp as RBs one through three, so Laube will be competing with Zamir White and Chris Collier for the fourth spot on the depth chart. And there’s no guarantee that the coaching staff will roster four running backs, meaning special teams will be a big factor for whoever is going to win that job.
Right now, I think it’s more likely that Laube begins the season on the practice squad.
A: I do think we can pump the brakes on the thought that Carroll is a magician who can solve all of the Raiders’ problems, especially in year one. But what I think gives a lot of people hope is the fact that he’s won pretty much everywhere that he’s been.
Carroll has had a losing season just four times in his 27 years as a college or NFL head coach, and one of those campaigns was 2010, when the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks won the NFC West and a playoff game. So, I understand why some think he’s the Raiders’ knight in shining armor.
A: Easy answer, the Super Hero movie theme isn’t that much of a draw for me, I’ve never seen any of the Avengers movies, so the John Madden bio with Nick Cage. I am a big fan of the “sports history” themed movies (if you will) and, obviously, this one being centered around the Raiders and Madden is a big draw for me.
That’ll do it for this week’s mailbag. Thank you all for submitting questions and, as your weekly reminder, if you’d like to have your questions answered in a future column, tweet them at me, @MHolder95, email them to SBPQuestions1@gmail.com or look for our weekly call for questions on the site. The latter will continue to publish on Thursdays. Sign up and go to the comments section.