The Las Vegas Raiders made some important defensive signings in free agency, including two boom-or-bust linebackers.
The Las Vegas Raiders have been one of the most active teams in free agency so far, with several of their key moves coming on defense. They’ve been getting a variety of grades for them from different outlets and evaluators, and one of the most intriguing came from Dalton Wasserman of Pro Football Focus, who put together a list of what he called “boom-or-bust” signings, with two new Raiders defenders featured on his list of eight players.
Even more intriguing, both were linebackers. Nakobe Dean and Quay Walker were college teammates at Georgia, and now they’re being paired up to help the Raiders get stops and get off the field.
They’ll also both be highly paid in Las Vegas, with the AAV of Dean’s deal being $12 million, while Walker’s AAV is for $13.5 million, which also means they’ll be two of the best-paid linebackers in the NFL.
Both players have issues, though, according to Wasserman. Dean has been a solid player when healthy, and his overall grade from PFF put him among the top 15 linebackers in the league. He suffered a knee injury during the playoffs back in 2024, though, which hurt his performance last season. His grade dropped considerably, and it’s worth noting that Dean has only played 500 snaps once so far in his career.
Walker, meanwhile, has had problems with productivity, which makes this signing more than a little odd. He played over 800 snaps during his time in Green Bay, but his grade was relatively low by PFF standards, and he was considered especially problematic in coverage.
The good news here is that they’ll both be just 26 when the upcoming season ends, so there’s clearly time and room for growth and improvement. The chemistry they displayed as teammates was probably an important element in this pair of signings as well, but they’re going to perform above and beyond what they’ve done to date to justify the money they’ll be paid in Las Vegas.
Another element of this pairing is the Maxx Crosby factor. The Raiders almost certainly couldn’t have known about the Crosby trade being rescinded when they signed these two defensive players, so it would be intriguing what the thinking was before that happened. We’ll probably never know this, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that any number of evaluators and experts could weigh in.
Could they actually benefit from Crosby’s presence now that the defensive end is back? This possibility isn’t speculative, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out on the field, assuming there isn’t another reworked Crosby trade between now and the end of training camp.