The Raiders 53 Man Roster Is LIGHTYEARS BETTER Than Last Year

This is going to be an extra-long episode because we've got a lot of things to discuss. As I was going to press record, I found out that Keiron Crawford was out for the year now. That wasn't new news, but I didn't find it out. I just remembered it. Also, DKAM, who made the roster, then was released because they signed a corner from the 49ers, and then they dropped the practice squad. There are some surprises on and off the practice squads. And it is also officially predictions week. And again, if I see a comment that says you're copying First Things First, you're right. I am. It's my favorite show, and I would like to be a part of it. So I'm going to do my own predictions week, which means that by the end of this video, there will be the first official bold prediction. And then some other videos throughout the week are going to be prediction-specific. I still have not given my win-loss prediction because I wait until the very last second to gather as much information as I can on the National Football League. And then we're going to do playoff predictions, Super Predictions, all that good stuff. But the Raiders dropped their 53-man roster, which we need to talk about. We're going to talk about Keiron Crawford being out for the year. That is absolutely devastating. One of the worst people to actually be out for the year in terms of young players. I mean, we'll get into it all. Practice squad did drop a react to that. I have a graphic here comparing the 2025 opening day roster to the 2026 opening day roster, which I think you're going to be excited to see. It's a pretty big upgrade. Like I said before, DKAM was released and then we got our first official bold. Now that the preseason is over, I want to check on the markets and see what they're saying about the regular season for the Las Vegas Raiders. So if we head over to Cal sheet, type in Las Vegas Raiders. Obviously, we've got different probabilities for winning or losing week one against the Dolphins. The AFC Championship, obviously, we're not in line to really do that. A 1% chance that the market says right now. But what's interesting is NFL playoff qualifiers. Now, a lot of people would say that it's a long shot for the Raiders to make the playoffs. But at 18%, I don't mind sprinkling a little bit on that. If we purchase the yes contract here, if we click Las Vegas Raiders, 18% chances of right now, and we throw $25 on that and we happen to make the playoffs, again, stranger things have happened. $132.86. Obviously, you can take anybody if you're confident that the Dallas Cowboys are going to make it and you purchase the yes contract for 25 here, 44, 54 to make the playoffs. And I do want to share with you that if you're interested in checking out Cal sheet, you can use code ALLABOARD to instantly get $25 when you trade 25. Now, Cal sheet isn't your traditional sports book where you're betting against the house. It is peer-to-peer trading. You're purchasing yes or no contracts. And the interesting and best thing about Cal sheet is that it's a variety of different topics. You got media, movies and TV and politics and sports and anything that you think you know a lot about that you want to purchase yes or no contracts on, Cal sheet is the place for you. So let's get into the roster, man. Position by position breakdown for the Raiders' initial 53-man roster. Me and Graff did our predictions for this and we were right on some things, wrong on some others. I was way wrong on a couple things in particular. We'll get into that in a second here. But one of the things where I was right is that we kept Aiden O'Connell. Obviously, he's had a little bit of an up and down preseason but he's had, all reports indicate, a pretty good camp. The thing that made me realize we were gonna keep him in the end was there's a world where, again, knock on wood, hopefully it doesn't happen, Kirk Cousins goes down with some sort of pretty bad injury. And if that's the case, you're gonna have to find a backup quarterback and we don't want Mendoza to go in there with Jacob Clark being the only backup quarterback. You don't want to have to go sign someone to teach him the offense. And in an ideal world, Aiden O'Connell would be the long-term backup to, you know, Fernando Mendoza. I don't think that's exactly what he wants. But overall, I'm happy that Aiden's on this roster and if it's his last year with us, then hold that clipboard the best you can, Aiden. Pretty surprised we didn't keep four running backs. I was pretty convinced it was gonna be Ashton Dillon, Mike Washington, and Roman Hemby. A part of me being convinced about that was the fact that we thought Ashton Gente could go on IR and what's crazy is that I don't think he's going to. I don't think he's gonna go on short-term IR, on the pop list, on long-term IR, on anything. I think this is all indications kind of show that they think he's gonna be ready for week one because if he's not ready for week one and you go out there with Washington and Lalby and one of them goes down, now you only have one running back, which is not a recipe for success. Again, they could still be adding people. They added somebody today, the corner from the 49ers. So for right now, this is what they're going with with Conor Hayward being that only fullback. The tight ends were kind of chalk. Obviously, it was gonna be Brock Bowers, Michael Mayer, and Ian Thomas. I think you could slide Brock Bowers up into that old, or slide him down here into the wide receivers because you're gonna see a lot of Brock in the slot or alongside the numbers and Michael Mayer being that tight end, which is why I think Michael Mayer being healthy is one of the whole keys to this season in terms of being able to see Clint Kubiak's full offense being put on display here because a wide receiver is not great, but we know this. Like I said, this is a multi-year rebuild and you can't flip the script right away. You hope one of these guys can step up and play better than they are perceived to be. Obviously, Trey Tucker is your biggest candidate to have maybe a sneaky breakout year. I believe Jack Besch is going to be wide receiver too alongside with Jalen Naylor. They're gonna be competing for that and then Malik Benson maybe could flash. We don't know anything about Dante because he didn't play essentially the whole offseason. Hopefully, he's okay now. And then DeRick Young is a special teams play. Offensive line, a little bit of surprise that Moffey's here, although he did play okay in the preseason. It was between Moffey and Meredith when me and Graff were doing the prediction and we landed on Jordan Meredith. Now, Jordan Meredith didn't get cut. He got traded to the Jets and we know what the Jets are trying to do. They're trying to get that first overall pick and you're doing a great job with those two linemen and that quarterback that you have. And I have to say, someone like Meredith, someone like Will Putnam, I mentioned this yesterday, or was it yesterday or two days ago, not being good enough to make this roster even though they both started games for us last year. That's pretty impressive. Defensive linemen, only surprise here is no Sloan. Patrick Johnson squeaks in instead of Sloan. If we're being honest, Patrick Johnson had the better preseason. I think that's totally fair. Four linebackers, Dean Walker and the Berg twins. We knew that was kind of coming. Obviously, this has been updated to add the 49ers player that I don't really know anything about him. We'll do a little deep dive on him later on this week, I guess. Taren Johnson, Masses, McCoy, Porter, and Stokes. Again, pretty much night and day from what we had last year. Safeties, Tristan McCollum sneaks on there. He was one of my question marks, but he did enough in the preseason. And then A.J. Cole, Matt Gay, and Alex Ward. So let's talk a little bit about, actually, I'm gonna pull an audible here. I'm gonna jump around. We're gonna go 2025 to 2026 comparison. Now, I want you guys to understand what your job is here as an audience member. It is to comment below what we're about to talk about here. Now, first, we got a bowl prediction, so I want you to comment bowl predictions as well throughout this whole week because it is predictions week. But I got a graphic here, and I think it's pretty inarguable when you pull up the graphic that this roster on the right, which is 2026, is a significant upgrade for 2025. Now, these PFF grades are from the year before these players were on our team. So when it says Geno Smith, top 10 PFF grade, that's from the 2024 season because this is comparing what our starting rosters were. And I want you to comment below if you agree that the green is correct on every single position, and we're gonna break it down just like this. Quarterbacks, again, going into the season, we thought Geno might've been better, but it's Geno, O'Connell, and Pickett. Now it's Cousins, Mendoza, and O'Connell. I think we can all agree that's a significant upgrade from going into last year. Running backs, it was Ashton Gentee with Zamir White and Raheem Ostert. And again, some of these PFF grades are college PFF grades because they were coming into the new season. Now it's Ashton Gentee and Mike Washington, a two-headed monster. Who is going to absolutely do everything he can to take the pressure off of Ashton Gentee. The tight ends are exactly the same, so there's no upgrade or downgrade there, but it's an upgrade because you think Brock Bowers is gonna be healthy for the entire season. The wide receivers, it's a bit of a downgrade because we lost Jacoby Myers, obviously. Omari Cooper was actually one of the wide receivers who was on this opening day roster, and then he retired because he saw how bad we were. Trey Tucker is somebody that, can he get to a position where people start to know his name? Because right now, that's the only position that isn't as good as it was last year going into the season. The offensive line is night and day. Colton Miller, when he played, had a better PFF grade last year than he did in 2024. We swap out people like Dylan Parham and Jordan Meredith and Alex Kappa for people like Tyler Linderbaum and, oh my God, Spencer Burford, right? And you have Charles Grant, Caleb Rogers, JPJ is healthy again. Max Crosby and Tyree Wilson, not as good as Max Crosby and Quidy Pei. Clearly an upgrade there. Last year, our linebackers were horrific. Jamal Adams, Jermaine Pratt, and Orlando Roberts. They could tackle, and that's about it. Now you've got N'Kobe Dean and Quay Walker. Significant upgrades. The cornerback position, obviously last year you had Stokes and you had Porter. Porter was a rookie, and Stokes was a first-year guy that needed to prove he could stay healthy. Now you still have those guys, but your backups now, along with Taron Johnson, who's in the mix, is really good rookie Jermaine McCloy and really decent rookie Hezekiah Masses. Significant upgrades over Darnay Holmes and Kyle Blue Kelly. I didn't include the kicker-punter situation because Matt Gaye, Daniel Carson, Carson's a little bit better. It's their kickers at the end of the day. Matt Gaye's looked good so far in the preseason. And then, I didn't have enough room to fit in the safety position. I think the safety position's massively upgraded because last year it was Chin and Polamau and not much else behind them, and now you've got Trae and Stukes in the mix, which is going to be, again, a really massive upgrade. Comment below if you agree with me with the positions that I put here and how much better they are. Obviously, the white means it's about the same or it's not as good. The light green means it's a slight upgrade, if anything, and then the big-time green means it's all the way up there. I think the linebackers probably should have also had a big-time green, but I think that's a pretty sick graphic. Take a screenshot if you'd like to tell your friends why you think the Raiders could get the nine wins this season. I'm not predicting that right away, but one of the bad things, obviously, about the offseason is people getting injured, and Keiron Crawford's injury is devastating. It's devastating for a lot of reasons. Now, I'm going to get into it in a second. I do just want to remind you to hit that subscribe button. About half the people that watch this video are not yet subscribed. Excuse me, I'm just getting emotional, and we need to push to 17,000, so if you can just do me a favor and hit that subscribe button, that would be much appreciated. The reason why Keiron Crawford's injury in particular is one that really hurts is because he needs to play. He barely played in high school. He played a year and a half in college or two years in college and got drafted in the third round because he's a freak athlete and he's a fast learner and he's got a high motor, and it's really unfortunate that he was just starting to kind of make a name for himself here with this team, a la Max Crosby in the preseason when he was a rookie. I think he broke his hand at some point in one of the games, but then he continued to play, which is crazy. We should have known then that Max Crosby was just a different breed, but Keiron needs to play, and it's really going to stunt his development. Now, hopefully, he could just take this year to work out in a bunch of different areas and get smarter and kind of understand what it's like to travel with the football team and be a part of an NFL roster and worship at the altar of Max Crosby, like I'm sure he's been doing the bulk of this offseason so far. But for the time being, Keiron Crawford is out for the year, and that is kind of a devastating injury. There aren't many rookies other than Mendoza. I mean, yeah, I think that would be the one that would be the worst to be out for the year, maybe Mike Washington, Trayden Stooks, but Keiron just needed to play, and it sucks, and it sucks that he's not playing. But the practice squad is interesting. There's a lot of notable names here. I think we'll just go down the list here and talk about some surprises. First of all, my guy EJ Williams, who I thought was going to make the roster, is not even on the practice squad, so what was I wrong about that? Brandon Cleveland, 7th-round DT, you know, he's a 7th-rounder. Javari Harvey, UDFA, not much to talk about there. Hemby was a guy that I thought, man, really had a chance to make this roster. I do think at some point he'll be on the roster because running backs always get banged up, so expect to see Hemby on the field with us at some point this year. I was a little bit worried that he was going to get picked up by somebody else, but he didn't. Other notable people, I'm surprised that they kept Tokyo Toe. They clearly believe in him somehow, and maybe they just wanted to get comfortable, but right now that's somebody that surprised me. They kept Dare Gumbawale also, who they signed to the practice squad. I wonder if a running back goes down, if it'll be Hemby versus a Gumbawale, who it's going to be. Will Putnam again, not good enough to be on the team this year, even though he starred in multiple games for us last year. Keean Sloan snuck his way to us, which is huge. And then you've got Devin Tompkins, who, again, if a wide receiver goes down, he's going to come up immediately. And Greedy Vance, another player. You know, these last few people here, Sloan, Tompkins, Vance, I really thought there was a chance they could be picked up, but, you know, fortunately for us, maybe unfortunately for them, they didn't. DKAM was released. We thought it was going to be DKAM versus Greedy Vance, and it ended up being neither. It ended up being the kid from the San Francisco 49ers. Let me pull up Raiders, waiver, wire, claim. Daryl Luther. Let's read about him. Bill Williams and Scott are right here on Silver and Black Pride. Yeah, so they released DKAM to make way for this kid. Is this stuff in the way? It's a little bit in the way, so let me get that out of the way for you here. Okay, Raiders claim one player on Ravers, cornerback off of the 49ers roster. The Ravers could have claimed as many players as they wanted to after the cutdown day and would have gotten all of them because they have the top waiver priority in the league. They ended up claiming just one, though. Cornerback Daryl Luther. He was, is it really Luther? Okay, it is. He was waived by the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. With a top waiver spot, the Raiders are expected to claim former 49ers cornerback Daryl Luther. The Raiders are allowed to claim however many players they wanted. He's expected to be one of them. The Raiders will have to move on from one player. It's going to be DKAM, we know that. He was a fifth-round pick out of South Alabama in 2023. He had been with the 49ers ever since. He played 27 games with three starts. He was with the 49ers in 2023 when the Raiders said Coach Kukubiak was an assistant offensive coach. Luther faced the Raiders in the preseason finale last Thursday in Las Vegas, or maybe he flashed something there. The Raiders' initial 53-man roster. Okay, you know DKAM's gone. They don't have a player waiting Monday, so they can start adding those players to the practice squad immediately. I don't know much about him, but, you know, we played against him in the preseason finale, which is interesting. Maybe he popped. So, shout out to him. Sorry DKAM, tough, tough. But, you know, that's NFL. Stands for not for long. Predictions week. Now buckle up here, because bold predictions are meant to be bold. If I say something, and you go, that sounds crazy, that's the point of a bold prediction. It could be good. It could be bad, right? That's the whole idea. But as I pull up the stats of this player, I just want something to be very clear. Players in the NFL have a very specific trajectory that's unique to them. For example, someone like Devontae Adams did not do anything until his fourth year in the league. Now, his second year was okay. He had under 1,000 yards, but he had 12 touchdowns on 75 perceptions. But he didn't have 1,000 yards until his fourth year in 2018. And he only had 1,000-yard season in his first five seasons. And then he started cooking with gasoline. And Devontae Adams was the second pick, or a second-round draft pick, right? Actually, wait, sorry, I have that wrong. He didn't have 1,000 yards yet until his fifth year, his first two years in the league. I guess I'll just show you, right? Let me just show that before I make my prediction. Right here, look, this is Devontae Adams, okay? Look, Devontae Adams, first year in the league, 38 receptions, 446 yards. Second year in the league, 50 receptions, 483. This is with Aaron Rodgers, by the way. Third year in the league, 1,000-ish yards, almost, and 12 touchdowns. Fourth year in the league, he was a pro bowler, and he only had 885. Fifth year in the league, breakout season. Got it? And that's with Aaron Rodgers. Imagine if Devontae Adams didn't have a good quarterback to play with, like this man right here, Trey Tucker. Because if we pull up his stats, first year in the league, 19 receptions, 331 yards. Look at the trajectory here. Second year in the league, 47 receptions, 539 yards and 3 touchdowns. Fifth year in the league, dang near 700 yards with horrible quarterback play. He played every single game. Almost 60 receptions and 5 touchdowns. 12.2 yards per reception. My bold prediction is that Trey Tucker has 1,000 yards and at least 8 touchdowns next year. Which means that I'm also predicting that the Raiders, a team that has been lauded and ridiculed and crucified for not adding a wide receiver, will have two 1,000-yard receivers on the roster. One being Brock Bowers, who's a tight end, and one being Trey Tucker. There is no reason Trey Tucker cannot reach his potential of 1,000 yards. With the new and improved offensive line, with better quarterback play, with a revamped running game with a Mike Washington Jr. that's added into the mix that's going to only make everybody around him better. Last year, we had to rely on the likes of Dante Thornton and Jack Besh to take some double teams away from Trey Tucker. Now at least you have a Jalen Naylor who's proven to be a little bit shifty in the open field. Brock Bowers is fully healthy. Michael Mayer is fully healthy. Clint Kubiak transformed Jackson Smith and Jigba. And I believe he's going to do the same thing to Trey Tucker. My first bold prediction is that the Raiders end 2026-2027 with 2,000-yard pass catchers. What say you? Am I crazy? Understandable. It's a bold prediction. But I just laid out the stats to you. Why can't it be done? Because the Raiders stink. The Raiders stunk last year, and he had 700 yards. He needs to play a little bit better, and he is so far. Kubiak needs to be a better play caller than Chip Kelly. I think we all agree he is. And Kirk Cousins slash Hernando Mendoza has to be better than Gina Smith slash Aidan O'Connell slash Desmond Ritter slash Kenny Pickett. Did I throw Desmond Ritter in there, even though he was two years ago? We've had so much bad quarterback play that I can't even remember who was under center. Is it a bold prediction? Yes, but I think it's one that's going to happen. People are sleeping on Trey Tucker. And I don't understand why people can't see trajectory and development. They look at what you have now and say, well, this is what they did last year. So this is what they're going to do this year. That's not how development works. I'm not saying that Jack Besch is going to become Randy Moss, or Dante Thorne is going to become Chris Carter. But Trey Tucker has gone better and better and better, and he's a legitimate impact NFL player with dog water quarterback play, and play calling, and offensive line play, and running back play. And I just showed you how much better the roster is. So why can't he have 1,000 yards? It's not the biggest ask in the world. We're getting bold. Second bold prediction coming tomorrow. I don't know when we're going to be predicting the playoffs and win-loss, but all that stuff is coming down the pipe, which means you better be subscribed to the channel. If you want to support the channel even further, shout out to my $5 and $10 patrons and YouTube members. You can join with the big join button below. That's $8 a month if you want a little cheaper option. Patreon is $5 a month. Check out my Instagram. Go give me a follow there. Check out my movie channel, All Aboard Productions. Hit that like button. Comment away. And please be sure to subscribe. It's free. I throw no charge to you. I love you guys.