After losing safety Tre'Von Moehrig to the Carolina Panthers in free agency this offseason, the Las Vegas Raiders pivoted quickly to fill the void. They signed safety Jeremy Chinn to a two-year, $16.26 million deal with $12.25 million guaranteed.
Chinn topped 100 total tackles for the third time in his career last season with the Washington Commanders. He tied his career-high with 117 tackles along with 2.0 sacks, five pass breakups and an interception. Chinn also played and started in every game last year for the first time in his career, topping 1,000 defensive snaps for the second time.
If everyone is healthy, the Raiders' defensive line looks to be among the best in the league. But there are uncertanties at linebacker and cornerback, with slot corner in particular being a big question mark right now.
Jeremy Chinn's versatility will be critical to success of Raiders' defense
Last week, Sports Illustrated's Carter Landis posed an idea about how Chinn can help out the Raiders' relatively weak linebacker corps. The quick answer he provided was that Chinn is "practically a linebacker," but that statement deserves a better fleshing out to provide context.
Chinn is listed as a safety, but that is short-changing his versatility. Last season, according to Pro Football Focus, he basically lined up everywhere for the Commanders' defense besides interior defensive line:
- 412 snaps in the box (across multiple spots)
- 299 snaps at free safety
- 202 snaps at slot corner (equally split between right and left)
- 26 snaps as a wide corner
- 81 snaps as an outside linebacker (equally split between right and left)
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Raiders' defensive coordinator Patrick Graham loves versatility, so he will surely deploy Chinn in a similar way this year as a safety-linebacker hybrid. This will allow him to help the team anywhere on the field.
The Raiders signed former Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Devin White in free agency, and he's expected to play a significant amount of snaps this season. However, that may not be a good thing for the Las Vegas defense at this point in his career. Chinn may be left to cover up some of White's mistakes, if not replace a good chunk of his snaps at linebacker as time goes on.
Chinn can also play some slot corner at an adequate level, as well as a deep safety in Graham's zone-heavy coverage scheme. If one made a list of things that will be critical to the success of the Raiders' defense this year, Chinn being healthy and putting his versatility on full display has to be high on it.