Raiders Could Be Moving On From Former Second-Round Pick

The Las Vegas Raiders’ offensive line was a mess last season, but new coach Klint Kubiak and GM John Spytek only made one major change. They landed the center they wanted in Tyler Linderbaum, although they had to reset the market for the position in the process. 

Part of the reason more changes weren’t made right away was the belief that interior lineman Jackson Powers-Johnson would “flourish” in Kubiak’s system, according to Sam Warren of The Athletic, but instead the opposite is happening. Powers-Johnson has been benched, with backup Caleb Rogers now the starting right guard. 

This isn’t how it was supposed to go for the second-round pick. Having a set position was supposed to be good for Powers-Johnson, who spent his first two seasons shuttling back and forth between center and guard. 

Moreover, the young lineman was excited to be working with offensive line coach Rick Dennison, who’s considered one of the best in the business based on his two decades of NFL experience. The guard called Dennison an “incredible teacher” who “has his back,” but Powers-Johnson didn’t play a single snap in the Raiders’ loss to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. 

Powers-Johnson is saying the usual things you’d expect a player in his position to say, which is that it isn’t his decision, all he can do is be the best teammate he can be, and so on. 

According to Warren, though, Powers-Johnson found consistency during training camp, then lost it in the regular season. He had reps were he “stonewalled’ pass rushers, per the writer, and other times when he himself got pancaked or left behind. 

The Raiders decided there was more bad than good, and the only thing Kubiak has said about all this is that the focus should be on what Rogers accomplished to win the job. 

The trajectory of Powers-Johnson’s career is now closer to an unknown, per Warren. He’s the last man standing from the 2024 draft class of former GM Tom Telesco, and Kubiak has slowly been chipping away at Raiders players from the previous regime as he sees them in action.

The most telling comment about all of this from Kubiak is that Rogers was “prepared,” which automatically opens the door for other questions. Warrens speculated that Powers-Johnson could be of interest to other teams, given that he won the Rimington Trophy in 2023 as the best center in college football. The Raiders haven’t given up on Powers-Johnson yet, but it sure sounds like that’s where things are headed.