The 2019 Oakland Raiders should be much better on both sides of the ball in 2019, but they still are not getting the respect they deserve.
During the 2018 NFL season, the Oakland Raiders defense was one of the more inconsistent groups in all of football. With only 13 sacks as a team, the pass rush was historically bad, and the secondary had flaws throughout the year.
Towards the end of the season, cornerback Gareon Conley stepped up in a big way, proving to be one of the better cornerbacks in the AFC West. Finally healthy, Conley is a guy who will be expected to lead this cornerback group in 2019, and general manager Mike Mayock has put some special talent around him.
In total, the defensive backfield should be much better in 2019, as the Raiders added talent at both cornerback, and safety. At linebacker, Oakland brought in veterans Brandon Marshall and Vontaze Burfict, two guys who have been Pro Bowl players at the NFL level.
Up front, the Raiders used three draft picks in 2019 on defensive end, bringing in young talent in an area that was a serious weakness in 2018. Last year, Oakland added talent on the interior of the defensive line, so this is a very young, and very talented group as a whole.
Despite all of the additions, the Raiders defense is still getting no love.
In a recent post by Bleacher Report, Maurice Moton ranked the Raiders defense as the worst in the NFL, even with so many additions to that side of the ball this offseason. While the defense has a lot to prove heading into 2019, ranking them at the bottom of the NFL is a bit of a stretch.
In the piece, Moton states that the Raiders do not have an elite defender on their defense, which is debatable as well. Once Conley got going in 2018, he became one of the better cornerbacks in the division, if not in the AFC. This is a unit that should improve in a big way in 2019, and it will be interesting to see where they rank once they gel as a defense.