Oakland Raiders: Free Agency Checklist

Safety

Plan A: Sign one of Tashaun Gipson/George Iloka/Rodney McLeod/Tony Jefferson

My “No” List: Eric Weddle, Tyvon Branch, Michael Griffin

The second most important group to add talent to in my estimation is the safety group. Although there is significant talent in the defensive line, the need at safety is significant. More importantly, this position group is in more need that corner.

The root cause of many of the defensive issues last season came from the safety positions and they trickled down into the cornerback group. To add to this, similar to the front seven, there is no defined scheme in the back end. Defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. comes from a cover one/cover 3 scheme, but last season the Raiders played just about every cover scheme due to rotating personnel.

This free agent class allows the Raiders to decide exactly what they want to become. By going down the route of Gipson or McLeod both of whom are high quality starting safeties, they will lean more towards a two high safety defense with one playing alongside Nate Allen.

Gipson can play in the box and is a quality in box defender, but he will be paid to make interceptions, which means most of his time should be spent either playing deep or in short zones. McLeod is strictly a free safety type and can play either as a sole deep safety or in a two-deep safety set.

On the other hand, there is George Iloka who is a big bodied strong safety in the Kan Chancellor mold. At 230 pounds he is not only a thumper, but he can also man up a tight end as well. He would be the key to allowing the Raiders to play the cover one/cover three scheme.

The wildcard here is Tony Jefferson. Strangely, the Cardinals only gave him an original round tender as a restricted free agent. Because he is an undrafted free agent, if the Raiders were to sign him to an offer sheet and the Cardinals not match it, the Raiders would not have to give up any compensation for Jefferson.

At 5’11 and 220 pounds, Jefferson played both safety spots in zone defense and played man against tight ends. Jefferson is a 25-year-old restricted free agent with significant production and versatility. The trick to prying away Jefferson is offering him a contract that is deeply front loaded which would put the Cardinals in the position to not only match the numbers, but the structure as well. To match that structure, the Cardinals would have to renegotiate contracts which only leverages their cap more or cut players with cap equity. Both choices are bad deals for them.

Unlike other positions, there is one question mark player in this group for me and that is the recently released Rahim Moore. He was not able to live up to the contract in Houston and is now a free agent. He could be a very intriguing “if all else fails” target and would be the only of that type of player that I would consider.

Contracts:

Tashaun Gipson: 4 years, 36 million, 18 million guaranteed
Rodney McLeod: 5 years, 40 million, 15 million guaranteed
George Iloka: 4 years, 32 million, 16 million guaranteed
Tony Jefferson: 5 years, 40 million, 12 mil year one, 8 mil year 2, 7 mil yrs 3-5
Rahim Moore: 2 years, 4 million, incentives to 12 million