Las Vegas Raiders: It is a good offseason to need help at guard

A look at the salary cap situation across the NFL, how it pertains to Guards, and who the Raiders could add at that position.

The news over the past couple of weeks of the Las Vegas Raiders parting ways with Trent Brown (traded to New England), Richie Incognito (officially released), and Gabe Jackson (unofficially released) has garnered some knee-jerk reactions from across Raider Nation. Fans are questioning the plan on the offensive line, and are worried that the moves made in the off-season to reconstruct the front 5 will take away from building the defense.

The reality of the situation however is that NFL teams across the league are having to make tough decisions on their offensive lines, cutting players they would rather keep, due to the salary cap restrictions for 2021.

NFL contracts are often “back-loaded,” meaning a player will continually make increasingly more money throughout the life of their contract as long as their team keeps them around. Backloaded contracts are written because the NFL salary cap usually increases each year.

Now, teams are in a tough situation and financially forced to cut contracts for solid players because their cap hit all of a sudden has become too large of a percentage.

In plain terms, Jackson’s salary of 9.6 Million last season accounted for 4.8% of the total spending the Raiders paid players in 2020. Now that the salary cap is down to 182 Million, Jackson’s cap hit jumped to 5.3% for 2021.

To put that percentage in perspective, only 12 teams in 2020 paid over 5.3% of their total cap to all the guards on their roster much less 1 player.

Perfectly good guards across the league are looking for a new team, more so than usual. In a perfect world teams would want to keep many of these players, but rest assured the Raiders will have some great options in free agency to make up for losing Jackson and potentially Incognito.

Raiders free agent targets at right guard

Joe Thuney – Patriots RG

Joe Thuney would normally be a very expensive free-agent acquisition. Widely considered to be one of the best guards in football, the Patriots let Thuney walk because they couldn’t afford him.

Now that guard spending across the league will be tight, Thuney may come at a discount. Voted 2nd team All-Pro in 2019, there is speculation Thuney could be looking for a one-year deal in 2021 before testing the free-agent market again in 2022 when the salary cap situation improves.

Trai Turner – Chargers RG

Trai Turner would be an intriguing possibility after getting cut by the Chargers earlier this week. Turner is a 5x Pro Bowler who already moved to Los Angeles last year, maybe Vegas is close enough for him to lean favorably in that direction. Turner is about as athletic as they come, (there are clips of him running downfield stride for stride with Christian McCaffrey) and would immediately boost the Raiders outside zone and screen game.

Kevin Zeitler – Giants RG

Kevin Zeitler is a more reasonable possibility, a very good guard but perhaps not a star at the position. If anything Zeitler is the picture of consistency only missing one game in the last six seasons. The wily vet has played Right Guard for Cincinnati, Cleveland, and the New York Giants.

Zeitler is a little leaner and taller than Jackson which would make sense if the Raiders are attempting to get back to the zone blocking system in 2020.

Kyle Long – Bears RG (2013-2019)

Yes, Howie Long’s son wants to come out of retirement. What better team to sunset his career than with the Raiders (wearing his dad’s old number perhaps)? Long is a 3x Pro-Bowler however all three came in the first three seasons of his career. Perhaps a year off from football to allow himself to heal from seven years worth of football injuries will rejuvenate him enough to warrant a fresh start in Vegas.