The Raiders officially have their Week 1 roster in place, which was mostly predictable outside of a few nice surprises. But the funny little thing about 53-man rosters is that they change literally every week – this month's feel good story could be a practice squad guy by Week 4. The NFL loves to remind everyone that its players have to consistently prove themselves, and there will almost certainly be a dozen or so players on the initial 53 that aren't suiting up by the time Week 17's Chargers game rolls around. Everyone's under pressure to perform in the NFL, but these three guys will probably hear it the most.
3 Raiders players who need to have really great Septembers (and Octobers, and Novembers)
1. Tyree Wilson
I'd argue that no one's under more pressure to start putting it together than Wilson, who was the center of basically every hypothetical Raiders trade on the internet over the last month. His preseason performances were underwhelming – both in games and at practice – but the fact that he didn't even dress for the final game suggests that his job is way more safe than anyone thought. Most pass rushers take a few years to develop – and Wilson is only 24 – but he's been historically bad so far and, notably, not a Tom Telesco draft pick. If he can't be a productive player on a defensive line with Maxx Crosby and Christian Wilkins, that's probably that for his time in Las Vegas.
2. Gardner Minshew
He's a QB, so it comes with the territory. Still, Minshew got the second-biggest QB contract of the offseason, and the preseason results weren't overly encouraging. I won't stop you from ignoring preseason stats, but it's not like there's any confusion over what type of QB the Raiders are getting. The team's been surprisingly open about the fact that Aidan O'Connell's going to play at some point this season, which is more of an indictment of Minshew than it is an endorsement of O'Connell. Minshew's contract won't be hard to move on from if/when that time comes, but it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
3. Jakorian Bennett
By Pro Football Focus' metrics, Bennett was quite literally one of the worst cornerbacks in football last season. Rookie struggles – especially at cornerback – are nothing new, but he was bad bad. The Raiders' secondary has a lot of questions, but you see the potential there for a deep group. Like Wilson, the Raiders are probably totally fine with letting him learn on the fly this year, but there are more than a couple guys ready to take his spot should he start slow again. The good news is that practice reports have been overwhelmingly positive, so maybe we all just freaked out about a 24-year old rookie cornerback a little too early.