The Las Vegas Raiders made sure to offer center Tyler Linderbaum a generous contract when the legal tampering period opened two days before free agency.
At the conclusion of the 2025 National Football League season, it was clear that the Las Vegas Raiders were going to go through a lot of changes during the offseason.
That was a change that needed to be made. Carroll is a fantastic and well-respected coach, but he didn’t have it this cycle, and while that’s also because the roster construction was poor, he assured the media and fans that the team would be contending for the postseason in his first year and that just couldn’t be further from the case.
Finding the right coach for not only the rebuild, but also the success that will come with it this offseason was super important, and the Raiders got their guy. Head Coach Klint Kubiak called offensive plays for the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks and is a highly-respected offensive mind that had been gaining tons of interest and attention over the last few years.
Kubiak and general manager John Spytek have a plan for how the rebuild will go and how it needs to be done, and a big part of it is establishing the offensive line. The offensive line was disastrous in 2025 and played a role in Las Vegas scoring the fewest points per game, so bringing in the top free agent center to help with that was a no-brainer for the Raiders.
The organization made headlines when it signed former Baltimore Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum to a massive three-year, $81 million contract with $60 million fully guaranteed, with some saying the franchise overpaid for his services; GM Spytek doesn’t agree and doesn’t care.
“We're going to put a lot on the center,” Spytek said at the annual league meeting on Tuesday. “At a position where some teams don't have as much value or want to put as much of a premium on it, that's not us.
“We value that position a lot, and he fits us perfectly from that standpoint. And so we were gonna make our best offer.”
Having a great center is such a weapon and usually translates into having a good offense. The Ravens always had at least a solid offense with Linderbaum snapping the ball and the Raiders are hoping he can help make that happen in Las Vegas.
According to ESPN’s Ryan McFadden, both Spytek and Kubiak have been fans of Linderbaum since he was an Iowa Hawkeye. Once the Ravens declined to pick up his fifth-year option, they knew they would make a competitive offer for Linderbaum and he agreed to sign on March 9, the first day of the legal tampering period ahead of free agency which opened two days later.
The Raiders had more than enough cap space to make a ground-breaking offer and it did just that. Linderbaum is now the highest-paid interior lineman of all time and surpassed Chiefs center Creed Humphrey’s $18 million average annual value by 50 percent ($9 million more per season).