The Raiders Just Worked Out 17 New Players.

It's actually starting to feel real, like, we are less than seven days away from the first game, because now the first game is on a Wednesday, and then there's a game on Thursday. There might even be a game on a Friday, I don't have this light on. Let me know if there's a game on Friday, I don't know for sure. And then we've got college football this weekend, like, this Saturday is week zero, and then Wednesday is a football game, and then Thursday is a football game, and then maybe Friday if I'm right or wrong about that, please let me know, and then Sunday, we play the Miami Dolphins. We are still smack dab in the middle of Predictions Week, and today, it's gonna be a controversial one because we're gonna talk a little Maximus 2X's Crosby. There's a lot that happened, I'd say we just jump right into it, because the Raiders today, you know, it was funny, we, as fans, think we know a lot of things. I think I know a lot, you think you know a lot. We all think we know a lot, because when we only claimed one person off waivers, a lot of people said, well, that must mean they're pretty comfortable with the guys they have they have in the locker room. That must mean that they like the wide receiver core, that must mean that they're okay with the line, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now today, we work out 16 people for potential spots on this team. I would be pretty horrified if I was anybody that was on the bubble, that I'm gonna get moved to the practice squad, or whatever's going to happen, cut, traded, who knows, maybe there's still shopping offers for Aiden O'Connell, which Spytek was asked that in the presser that he did a couple days ago, and he said, we, you know, we get a lot of calls about a lot of people, and we are happy with Aiden, I'm sure they are, but if they get like a fifth or a fourth, they might pull the trigger. Although if Kirk Cousins goes down, again, I don't think you want Jacob Clarke, oh no, Jacob Clarke's not even on the practice squad, so they'd have to get another quarterback, I don't think they're going to do that, he's going to be the emergency third cue. Point being, now all of a sudden, we've gone from the Raiders didn't pick anybody up on waivers so they must love what they have, to the Raiders are in deep doo-doo because they've worked out all these people. Here's the reality of the situation, we wanted to see what these guys were going to be in a workout before we picked anybody up, because when you're picking guys up off the scrap heat, if you miss out on somebody, oh darn, you missed out on somebody, but we had the first chance to get anybody that we wanted, so we weren't going to miss out on the person that we wanted, which was Luder, and we got him. So if we pull up the tweet here from Ryan McFadden, count them, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 people, Raiders held tryouts for the following players including wide receiver Marquez Valdez-Scantling, and former first round pick, I believe, Evan Neal. Now some of these guys I ain't never heard of, but if we go position by position, we've got two wide receivers, two, three linebackers, we got one, two, three DBs, we got a defensive end, Aziz Ojuwari, we know him, right? We got a tackle from William & Mary, okay, we got some guards, we got a center. We got a lot of interesting names here. Obviously MVS is the one that jumps out the most, or Evan Neal also jumps out the most. It would be cool to add one of these guys if they really do think that they can help us. But here's what I want to focus on. A couple things. Right off the rip, what do you not see on this list? Running back. Now, number one, that's because they have two decent quality depth guys on the bench with Hemby and Daré. But number two, it really shows you just how lucky we got with the Ash and Gente thing. He's completely healthy. The fact that they didn't even consider working out a running back. Number two, depending on which guys we look at and which guys we maybe grab from this work out of people, that will show you how they feel about that specific room. If they grab another DB, maybe it's Jermod McCoy Insurance, maybe they don't love what they've seen from Darian Porter right now and they're going to have to start masses which means they need a backup for masses, who knows. If they add a wide receiver, then it truly is doom and gloom for the Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver core. Obviously, we don't have the best wide receiver core in the league. Obviously, it's not great. It's not even good. It's probably average or below average. It's honestly below average. I'm a big believer in Trey Tucker. If you saw my one bowl prediction, it was that he was going to have 1,000 yards. DB is a big pattern here on this list along with linebacker. Does that speak volumes about Tommy Lindenberg, Tommy Eichenberg, and Cody Lindenberg? All that to say, Spytek's way of kind of maneuvering how he uses the waiver wire, trading back and still getting your guy, making sure that you're in position to get the right player. Comment below who you think would be good to grab out of here. Most people are going to say MVS because we've seen him have decent success or maybe Aziz or maybe Evan Neal. If there's some other people here that I didn't recognize that you guys think are pretty good, let me know. But I just want to do a quick five here about Spytek in particular because what I really love is how efficient he is. We were first in the waiver wire, which means you can get anyone at any position. They got the guy that they wanted and then they used their time now to bring in everybody else that they probably considered picking up to work them out. And also, subconsciously, you hear reports, Raiders working out 16 or 17 guys. Players probably hear the noise. The wide receivers probably see that we worked out MVS. The linebackers probably see that we worked out Aziz. The linemen probably see that we worked out Evan Neal. And that's a little bit of healthy pressure on the people who have already made the roster. Clint Kubiak has talked about competition at every level. It's something that we were sold a bill of goods on with the Pete Carroll of it all and then he just played all the veterans except for Dante Thornton and Ash Ngenti. Kubiak and Spytek seem to have bred legitimate competition that's only going to help make the players that are going to develop into stars one day, develop into stars one day faster. I love John Spytek drafting smartly in the first round, getting the obvious guys, the Gentis of the world, the Mendozes of the world. In the second round, loving to move back and get someone like a Trayton Stoops or a Jack Besh, right? He's done that twice in two years now. And this year, in particular, moving back got you the chance to get somebody like a Mike Washington. A trade we made for the Jacobi Myers deal with Jacksonville gave you another extra pick to go get you a Trey Zun or a Jermod McCoy. Every little thing that Spytek does from a structure standpoint, from a movement standpoint, from a transaction standpoint, like how he's running the team is top notch. It's perfect. Only time will tell if he is a great evaluator of talent, if the scouts are feeding him the correct information. Because you can be great at drafting, but you might not be great at trading. You can be great at trading, but you might not be great at the waiver wire. It seems like he's got the structure of being a GM down halfway through, or I guess a quarter of the way through year two of being a GM. Yeah, yeah, about a quarter. And I love what I'm seeing from Spytek so far. So let me know down below in the comments who you think we should grab from those 16 or 17 people. Do you think it means a lot? Do you think it means nothing? Do you think it's just good, structured, organizational know-how to just leave no stone unturned? I don't know. Do you let me know? I don't think it means anything in terms of like, uh-oh, they're panicking about how bad this roster is because they could have claimed a bunch of people, and then they could have filled all those spots anyway. But they didn't. They're taking their time, and they're seeing what's up. Speaking of seeing what's up, Richie Incognito is talking, and he's talking about the Las Vegas Raiders and the offensive line last year. And he shared, and this is via Josh, what does that say, Josh Lyles on RaidersBeat.com. Richie Incognito shares what players told him about the 2025 coaching staff. And I'm sure we're going to get into the specifics of the offensive line as well. So it's going to be very interesting when we dive into this here. It is September. And for football fans, it is the most wonderful time of the year. But for people trying to get back into their daily routines and habits post-summer break, it's a little bit of a struggle. And specifically, we sometimes struggle with the proper nutrition and diet. But I'm here to tell you, I have some help for you. And that help is Factor. Factor makes it easy to throw bad eating habits out the window and get back into the routine, back into eating real food with chef-crafted, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door. Every Factor meal is dietitian-approved. 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The Raiders offensive line was one of the worst in the NFL since 2025 and according to the California Post, Vinny Bonsignore, even people in the Raiders building were blown away by how bad the line was last year. We thought it was going to be, excuse me, decent and wow, it fell off the cliff quickly. I'm going to throw this at you, talking to some of the people in the Raiders organization as they assessed, actually it was during the season, late in the season. I was told that the coaching along the offensive line last year, and this is by somebody that's been around the NFL for a long time, it's the worst he's ever seen. Bonsignore said on the Raider Nation Mornings tailgate in June. Injuries were a factor in the Raiders' failure in the trenches, but there's no question the coaching also played a pivotal role. Former offensive coordinator Chip Kelly was paired up with Pete Carroll's son as his offensive line coach, and a lot has already been reported on their forgettable time together. Kelly ended up being fired after just 11 games and just stole millions of dollars from Mark Davis and all of us. Brennan Carroll held on to his job to the end of the season, we all know why that was. But moving into the 2026 season, the Raiders have added Rick Dennison to coach their offensive line, and Dennison is one of the most respected coaches in the league. Former Raider Richie Incognito was on the Raiders' flagship radio station this week, and he talked about what Dennison brings to the team, as well as what he was told about last year's coaching staff. We've got a lot of youth up front, so for a coach like Rick Dennison to come in with his pedigree and all his coaching. We were together in Buffalo in 2027, he was the offensive coordinator of the year we broke the playoff drought, and I know he was a highly detailed guy. He could teach these guys technique, and that's one thing that was missing last year, was the teaching component. Obviously, Brennan Carroll doesn't know anything about anything. Okay, talking to the guys, they were really frustrated. Our group of guys that worked really hard on the offensive line and throughout the entire Raiders team. These guys worked hard, and their frustrations last year was they were putting in all this time and they're not getting the results on the field, but they really felt like they weren't getting coached up in meeting rooms, so there was a lot of frustration. We obviously assumed a lot of this, but it's nice to hear that it's actually true and also shows that Rick Dennison, he's got a low bar to walk over, but I think he's going to leap over it. I think the frustration is completely gone with a guy like Rick Dennison, there you go. He's a highly detailed guy. I'm just adding words to this article. He's all about fundamentals. He's going to get these guys going all on the same page, and you could see it in the preseason. You could see the double teams happening, the bodies hitting the floor, the backs hitting the holes. It's an exciting time. On the Homegrown podcast with David and Derek Carr, a great podcast, David was asked to name the hardest working coaches he's ever been around, and Carr named Mike Sullivan from the time with the New York Giants. That dude, you talk about having answers to the test, he would spend countless hours and days finding obscure coverages and fronts that these guys played against a certain formation that you have. To where you go on the field, you have all the answers. Carr said of the Raiders' 59-year-old quarterback coach in May, back in May, you know, right when they drafted Mendoza, Sullivan, coached in the NFL for 22 years, has been a quarterback coach for seven seasons, an OC for four seasons, he also has nine years of experience as a college coach. Kubiak wasn't going to initially have a quarterback's coach at the Raiders right until Marcia hired Sullivan, but Sullivan's familiarity with Kubiak ended up bringing the two together in Las Vegas. Man, what a shitshow that Pete Carroll brought to this team. It's crazy that you can get to a point where you can be so arrogant that you think, I can have my son, who's learned under me, coach the offensive line. It showed, man. It showed hard. The fact that they were putting guys in like Alex Kappa and Jordan Meredith at positions that Charles Grant and Caleb Rogers should have been in, and JPJ should have been in, and then once injuries happened, and once the season kind of fell apart, and Pete Carroll was forced to play the young guys, the offensive line improved. And we dunked a lot on Geno Smith, and rightfully so. He was not good, but it wasn't all his fault. And Ash Ingentis faced a lot of criticism about last year. Clearly it wasn't his fault at all. And a lot of our young offensive linemen, like JPJ and DJ Glaze, garnered a lot of criticism last year, and it sounds like it wasn't their fault either. One of the reasons why I really believe that Kirk Cousins is going to have an easier time moving the ball up and down the field than people think, is because his running game is going to be pretty good, and because he's going to be protected at a rate far higher than anything we've seen in the last few seasons. And that is because of the offensive line. That's because of Rick Dennison, because of Tyler Linderbaum, because of Burford, and because of DJ Glaze finally having a teacher in the locker room that can show him the ropes to be coached up. And like Richie said, obviously the preseason's vanilla, but it's not vanilla when you're blocking guys. It's mono-e-mono. It's double teams. It's putting guys on the turf. And you saw a substantial upgrade and impact in this preseason, even compared to last preseason. Last preseason, the quarterback was getting sacked, and Gente didn't have a lot of running room in the preseason. And now what do we see? Gente popping when he's in there for a little bit of time, and Mike Washington Jr. being an absolute star in the preseason, obviously. So I'm excited. It's unfortunate to hear what was going on last year, but it just goes to show you that you need to have the ability to know what you don't know and admit your faults. And Pete Carroll didn't want to do that. He fired the offensive coordinator, but he wouldn't fire the line coach, which was his son. And that bit him in the ass, and that's the way the cookie crumbles. You let your arrogance get the best of you, and this year it doesn't seem like we have to deal with that. Now maybe these aren't the right guys for the job because they don't know how to coach. Maybe that's the case. But from all we heard about Mike Sullivan and Rick Dennison is that they're studs. John Spytek is building this thing one player at a time. Clint Kubiak is showing a lot of humility and intensity at the same time, and that really gets me excited. You know what doesn't get me excited is that my helmet stops spinning, which is something that happens pretty often in a lot of these videos, and I don't like that. I want it to keep spinning, and I want to talk about my Max Crosby Bowl production. Before I do that though, I just want to let you know that about 50% of the people that are watching this video are not yet subscribed to the channel. If you made it this far, that means you liked what I'm talking about, and if you haven't yet subscribed, what the heck are you doing? We're trying to get to 17,000. We're pushing our way up the ranks here. We want to be one day the highest subscribed Raider YouTube channel. Now we got a long way to go to catch something like Chatsports. I understand that. But why not us? I never thought I'd have 1,000 subscribers, so we're already at 16. Let's get to 17. Let's get to 20. Let's get to a million. That would be pretty crazy. Max Crosby Bowl prediction. Let me prepare for this. That is warm. The prediction is twofold. I don't think I have the guts to go all the way with this, even though it's a bowl prediction, because my mind is telling me no, but my body, my body is telling me yes. And here's what I'll say. This part is not the bowl part. I expect Max Crosby to have the best season of his career. I don't think that is a bowl prediction. I think he would be firmly in the Defensive Player of the Year race if we were good enough for him to qualify. He would have to break records for him to get it. Well, I guess, you know, Miles Garrett won it, and the Browns are horrible, but he broke records. So Max Crosby would have to have a near record-breaking season to be considered for Defensive Player of the Year, which I think he's going to, but that's not my bowl prediction. I don't want to say this out loud, but I do think there's a real likelihood that at the trade deadline, again, this is where I'm not going to go all the way, and I'm going to say that we're going to trade him, but you're going to hear reports and swells unless we're in the mix. Maybe we're in the mix, but if we're not, you're going to hear reports, and you're going to hear rumors, and you're going to see tweets from Schefter and Rappaport that the Raiders are listening to calls about Max Crosby, and people are trying to trade for Crosby, and we're going to trade Crosby this and Crosby that. And as we do, we're going to defend Max, we're going to defend the organization, and we're going to say it's not true, he's a Raider for life, we know this, we know this, we know this. My bowl prediction is not that Max Crosby gets traded, but my bowl prediction is those rumors are going to be true, that we are probably going to be out of the mix by the time the trade deadline rolls around, and we're going to be heavily shopping him, because he's going to have a monster year. And if you can get another 2027 first, and maybe a young player, you know, what did the Rams give up? They gave up a first, I think, right? They had to have given up a couple firsts in Jared Vers, right? If we can get a young player, and a 2027 first, it essentially guarantees you whichever wide receiver you want, because you can use that 2027 first to trade up to get Jeremiah Smith or Cam Coleman, depending on where we are in the draft, and then you could draft another edge rusher and find his replacement, and then really start this rebuild, and really get things going, and then Mendoza comes in, and he's got his number one wide receiver, and he's got his running back, and he's got his tight end, and now this offense is the beating heart of this team, and now Mendoza's new face of the franchise, and Mac's gone, I think that's a real possibility. So again, my bold prediction is not that he has a career year. My bold prediction is not that they're going to trade him. My bold prediction is that if you hear rumors about us looking for deals centered around him, I think it'll be true. So look, only time will tell. Speaking of nothing, I don't know how to segue out of that, shout out to my $5 and $10 patrons and YouTube members. Patreon, $5. YouTube members, $8. Link in the description below for Patreon, big join button for YouTube members. Why did I get rid of the socials? I don't know. Instagram's up there. Patreon's up there. Movie channel is up there. We hit monetization on the movie channel. Let's go. Diversify your income. Hit that like button, comment away, and please be sure to subscribe to Sprout, throwing the charge to you. I love you guys. What are we, nine days away? I don't know. See you next time.