2020 Las Vegas Raiders 53-man roster projection entering training camp
Specialists (3): Daniel Carlson, A.J. Cole, Trent Sieg
Daniel Carlson struggled at the end of the season and the Raiders brought in undrafted free agent Dominik Eberle of Utah State to compete with him in camp. Unless Eberle absolutely lights it up and Carlson stinks up the joint, then we can expect Gruden to roll with the more experienced Carlson given the stakes of the 2020 season.
AJ Cole was a diamond in the rough that the Raiders discovered in rookie camp, and he was excellent in 2019, finishing 14th in the league in yards per punt but was just one yard behind the fifth ranked punter. He also had the third longest punt in the league last year with a booming 74 yarder.
We should expect another punter or two to be brought in for camp and preseason just to give Cole a break, but barring injury he should be the starter in 2019. Trent Sieg‘s place as the long snapper is not under much risk either, but the Raiders brought in a rookie from Ohio State, Liam McCullough, to spice things up and challenge Sieg.
We should expect the unexpected in this bizarre offseason that the NFL is trying to navigate through but thankfully the Raiders will have continuity at several key positions across the three units of the team. Going in to 2020, we can expect some shuffling of the deck at the backup positions, but the starters on all three units seem to be set barring injury or some other unforeseen circumstance.