The Las Vegas Raiders have a solid opportunity to make a real splash in their first season in Sin City, and we break down the position groups heading into free agency and the draft.
The new era of the Las Vegas Raiders is upon us and for all intents and purposes Raider Nation has a lot to be excited about. From a brand new, state of the art stadium to a young up and coming team that seems to be on the rise within the NFL, there is plenty to discuss as the 2020 season creeps upon us.
We saw the Raiders make huge strides last season after finishing the first year of Jon Gruden’s tenure back with the team in 2018 with a 4-12 record. Even though they still didn’t make the playoffs, the Raiders finished the 2019 season at 7-9 and nearly doubled their win total.
On top of that, they were sitting at 6-4 heading into Week 12, one game behind the Kansas City Chiefs and looking to make a real playoff push before they imploded on themselves during the last leg of the season.
With one of the best draft classes top to bottom the Raiders have ever seen in terms of production and potential, the 2019 rookies were a large reason they had such a promising year. As Mike Mayock enters his second draft as the Raiders GM, he’ll hope to hit it out of the park again and continue to build a team that can compete within the AFC.
Luckily for the Raiders their positions of need have plenty of talent in free agency and in the 2020 NFL Draft. We’re going to break down where the position groups on offense and defense fall under these 3 categories:
Remain: Self explanatory. Groups with core/starting players in place that are a strong point for the team. Does not exclude bringing in new faces, but would be for backup/depth purposes only.
Reload: Groups who have good talent in place, but could use one or two more players to take them to the next level. Either through the draft or in free agency.
Reset: Groups needing a majority overhaul. Might have 1 or 2 good players in place, but needs top tier talent brought in through free agency and the draft.