Safety Tre'Von Moehrig was a rare NFL Draft success story from the previous regimes of the Las Vegas Raiders. After being a second-round pick in 2021, he started every game and played over 1,100 snaps in three of his first four seasons, according to Pro Football Reference.
That emergence also lined him up to get a notable deal in free agency this offseason. On Day 1 of the legal tampering period, Moehrig struck a three-year, $51 million deal with the Carolina Panthers, $34.5 million of which was guaranteed.
The Raiders pivoted quickly to replace Moehrig, signing versatile safety Jeremy Chinn to a two-year, $16.26 million deal with just $12.25 million guaranteed. Chinn is expected to be a real chess piece for defensive coordinator Patrick Graham as a safety and linebacker hybrid.
Raiders' free agency pivot gets some inadvertent praise
Raider Nation should not begrudge Moehrig for going to the highest bidder in free agency, and Chinn is still a relative unknown in defensive coordinator Patrick Graham's system. But it looks like the Raiders came out on the winning end of the value equation, considering Chinn's entire deal is less than Moehrig's annual average.
Kristopher Knox of Bleacher Report recently named the 10 worst contracts in the NFL heading into the 2025 season, calling out teams for their bad investments. The deal that the Panthers gave Moehrig didn't make the list of 10, but it did land in the "(dis)honorable mention" category.
"The Panthers overpaid again this offseason when they signed Tre'von Moehrig to a three-year, $51 million deal that includes $34.5 million guaranteed," Knox wrote. "The 26-year-old developed into a fairly reliable starter for the Las Vegas Raiders but hasn't established himself as a top-tier player yet."
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Knox went on to talk about how poor this contract looks when factoring in Moehrig's production and how the deal compares to others around the league.
"Moehrig allowed an opposing passer rating of 92.5 in 2024 and was graded 59th overall among safeties by Pro Football Focus," Knox wrote. "To land him on the open market, Carolina made Moehrig the league's sixth-highest-paid safety in terms of yearly value and gave him more guaranteed money than all but four NFL safeties."
While Carolina was making Moehrig the sixth-highest-paid safety in the league by annual average, the Raiders grabbed Chinn for what is outside the top 20 highest-paid safeties. There is even an argument that Chinn is a better player, so this swap was a no-brainer.
Knox's analysis was strictly about his perception that the Panthers overpaid for Moehrig, but it also stands as praise of the Raiders for not overpaying to keep him. With Chinn clearly lined up as the team's top safety this year, the Las Vegas defense may be better off anyway.