4 Las Vegas Raiders who really need to step up in 2022
By Sean Basile
The Las Vegas Raiders should be one of the best teams in the AFC this season, but these four players need to step up for them to be just that.
The Las Vegas Raiders are revamped and ready to rock in 2022 as they’ll be hitting the ground running with a new head coach and a bevy of fresh impact players added to the team this offseason.
This has developed into one of the deeper rosters in all of football over the past several months, so let’s take a look at four key Raiders who are really going to need to step up in 2022 if they want to maintain their status with the team.
4 Las Vegas Raiders who really need to step up in 2022
No. 1: Johnathan Abram
Johnathan Abram had nearly 120 tackles last season, but health, occasional recklessness, and overall quality of play are all marks that can, unfortunately, be used against him in a contemporary evaluation scenario.
After watching Abram for the past three years, I don’t believe it to be a totally outlandish claim that sometimes the high-flying safety plays a little too hard for his own good. In his professional debut, he tore his rotator cuff and labrum in the first quarter of a game which put an end to his rookie season.
He also sustained a knee patella sprain in early December of 2020 and then a Grade 1 concussion the following week. And who could forget the time he knocked himself out on Monday Night Football against the Saints in September 2020 flying out of bounds on a push-out play?
I personally don’t take pleasure in criticizing a player for playing “too hard,” but when we see multiple examples of his high motor working against him health-wise, it’s clearly something to take note of.
When he’s not injuring himself, unfortunately, his play as a coverage safety is also on the downside compared to other notables at the position.
Pro Football Focus gave him a grade of 56.9 last season (the highest PFF grade of his career thus far) and recorded him as allowing the most receptions at the position (54) while also being targeted the most (68 times) of any safety in the league.
For comparison, Jordan Poyer, a very good player at the position, was targeted 27 times and allowed 13 receptions, and received a PFF grade of 78.2 last season.
Abram does not appear to be on the level of some of the more elite safeties in the league at the current moment, and now he’s got serious depth behind him in Duron Harmon (former Patriot), Matthias Farley, and Roderic Teamer as well as potential nickel options in Darius Phillips, Cre’Von LeBlanc, and Anthony Averett.
If you ask me, I’d say move Abram to linebacker with that tackling prowess of his. He plays an awful lot more like a linebacker than a safety. He’s going to seriously need to step up this season with that depth now behind him if he’s going to stick on this team.