The Las Vegas Raiders must use every means at their disposal to improve their roster during the 2026 NFL offseason. With abundant salary cap space and 10 total selections in April's draft, including the No. 1 pick, this is a pivotal stretch for a Raiders team that needs help at practically every position.
Las Vegas is in this predicament in the first place because it has utilized its resources so poorly. Whether it was handing big contracts to Christian Wilkins or a variety of veteran quarterbacks, letting the wrong players leave the building, or whiffing on draft picks, it has been all bad for the Raiders.
But this is a new era for the Silver and Black under John Spytek and Klint Kubiak. This group is about the work. Time will tell if that work is fruitful or not, but at least Spytek seemingly has the correct approach for next month's free agency period. If he follows through on it, it would be a great start.
John Spytek's FA plan is as sensible as Raiders fans have heard in yaers
After Kubiak's introductory press conference, Spytek sat down with Amber Theoharis, James Jones and Eric Allen to discuss some of the team's future and immediate plans. When asked about how the Raiders planned to attack free agency, Spytek gave fans just what the doctor ordered.
"I would say intelligently aggressive. Have a good plan and not get carried away," Spytek said. 'There's a lot of emotions that creep into those markets, and you budget $15 (million) for a guy, and then what's another one, two, now it's $20 (million). And then you do that a couple more times, and you just go, well, there go a couple more players. We're going to sit and figure out what this team needs in order to take the next step from a player standpoint, and what makes sense in Klint's vision and my vision, and pair those two up. We're going to attack it full-on. We're sitting in a position of strength in the market, but we want to be smart with that, too. I don't want to wake up in '27 and '28 and kind of regret some of the deals we did, knowing that emotion got too involved in that."
On several levels, this was the perfect response from Spytek. Let's start at the top, with his approach of being "intelligently aggressive." This is such a pivotal aspect of addressing the open market, as you can't get overzealous and spend willy-nilly just because you have the salary cap space to do so.
As Spytek alluded to, the Raiders are trying to budget for a lot of players to come into the building this offseason. Instead of overpaying just to get the top guys, they'll determine a player's value and won't budge too much, because truthfully, one player isn't going to fix the entire mess in Las Vegas.
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Now, that doesn't mean the Raiders won't pursue those coveted veterans. As Spytek said, they'll be aggressive. But it won't just be his decision; it'll be a collaborative approach, which has been sorely missing from the front office in Las Vegas for as long as fans can remember.
Last season, the team made a weird blend of win-now acquisitions and a handful of moves that signaled a rebuild. The Raiders were not on the same page. But that is clearly of the utmost importance now that Spytek and Kubiak have some runway in Las Vegas.
Landing big-name free agents like Tyler Linderbaum, Devin Lloyd or George Pickens would be exciting, and they would undoubtedly help this football team. It sounds like the Raiders will kick the tires on players of this caliber, but they won't lose two or three other players just to sign them.
This is a rebuild, after all. Things could turn around quickly, but Las Vegas is in no position to assume that will happen and spend just for spending's sake. The Raiders have resources, but so do a lot of teams. Maximizing those resources is paramount, and Spytek clearly plans on doing that.
Hopefully, he can follow through on that plan.