The Las Vegas Raiders have plenty of questions going into this season, including the offensive line.
The Las Vegas Raiders are facing a lot of major questions coming off a 3-14 seasons, and most of the front-facing ones have been about the quarterback. The projected starting date of rookie quarterback Fernando Mendoza is a popular topic, but Ted Nguyen of The Athletic posed a very different query in his piece that featured one big question for each team going into the season.
It’s about the offensive line. It’s not exactly front-page news that the group up front was bad to the point of being worst in the league, but Nguyen backed this up with the telling fact that running back Ashton Jeanty was tackled for a loss 45 times, which led the league.
But the way Nguyen posed the question was a little different: How much can coaching make a difference with this offensive line?
It’s still a valid question. As the writer noted, left tackle Kolton Miller is back after injuring his ankle, but the only major add was center Tyler Linderbaum, as the Raiders wound up resetting the center market to get Linderbaum in free agency as they wound up bidding against themselves.
The other add was guard Spencer Burford, a backup with the San Francisco 49ers who will now start in between Miller and Linderbaum. There may be new players plugged in as the season progresses, but right now it looks like two of the players who manned the right side last year will be back for more.
That means the Raiders are relying on Rick Dennison, a veteran offensive line coach who’s one of the most respected position coaches in the NFL. That’s a huge upgrade given that the major qualifications of last year’s line coach, Brennan Carroll, was that he was the son of fired coach Pete Carroll.
Can Dennison raise the level of play for this group? We’re about to find out. What we saw in the preseason was a suddenly competent running game that featured rookie running back Mike Washington Jr, but that’s close to meaningless now heading into real games that will actually have specific offensive and defensive game plans.
The Raiders are also relying on Linderbaum to be something of a de facto coach. He’s one of the best in the game at making protection calls and getting everyone positioned correctly, but that’s a long way from elevating the play of the right side of the line. The Raiders are making a big gamble here, but the good news is that they don’t have a lot to lose coming off that 3-14 season.
