Tag: 185022

HENDERSON, Nev. — Johnathan Hankins and Bilal Nichols both came off the PUP list last week, and no, that rumble you heard emanating from near the Las Vegas Raiders‘ compound was not the latest monsoon rolling through Sin City.

It was a sigh of relief.

The Raiders getting their two projected starting defensive tackles out of the training room from undisclosed injuries and onto the practice field provided more than a feel-good story.

“Certainly, we now have more depth than what we’ve been practicing with, for sure,” first-year Raiders coach Josh McDaniels said. “I think anytime you add players back, in this case two defensive linemen that we have some hopes for, it kind of reallocates the repetitions. It re-slots everyone into maybe a role that maybe fits them perfectly, or better than what we were doing before. I see those guys as guys that can contribute.”

Better late than never, right?

Consider: the Raiders, under McDaniels and new defensive coordinator Patrick Graham, have reimagined the defensive line, especially its interior. Because while there is no doubt about the roles of star edge rushers Maxx Crosby and Chandler Jones, Hankins was the only pure interior D-lineman brought back by the Raiders’ new regime (Kendal Vickers rotates between the interior and edge).

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And, as noted above, Hankins started training camp on PUP.

Gone are Quinton Jefferson (4.5 sacks in 2021), Solomon Thomas (3.5), Darius Philon (2.0) and Damion Square (0.5), taking 10.5 of the Raiders’ 35 sacks from last season with them. In their place are free agents Nichols, Andrew Billings, Kyle Peko, Tyler Lancaster and Vernon Butler (who was released Aug. 16) and draft picks Neil Farrell Jr. and Matthew Butler.

Keep in mind, while the Raiders’ depth chart shows a 4-3 alignment — Hankins and Peko started at defensive tackle in Las Vegas’ exhibition at the Miami Dolphins last weekend, while Peko and Billings started the first two preseason games — Graham’s scheme has plenty of 3-4 sensibilities.

“Coach Pat got us going through a couple of different formations,” Peko said with a smile. “Up front, the more you can do, the better. So I think for all the interior guys, knowing each end knows the three-tech spot, it’s just beneficial for the whole defense in the long run.”

It’s a simple philosophy, really.

“We know the vision Josh has — he wants us to win the line of scrimmage, so we’ve got to be heavy handed,” Graham said early in camp. “We’ve got to come out of our hips. We’ve got to strike people. Right now, we’re not striking people; we’re hitting sleds. But you see … improvement, you see the pad level.

“I always think about young defensive linemen — when they’re in college, they’re better than everybody. Here, everybody’s good. You better get your pads down, or you’re going to get embarrassed. So that’s been a big focus.”

Farrell, a fourth-round pick from LSU, and Butler, a fifth-rounder from Tennessee, played 27 and 22 snaps, respectively, against the Dolphins, with Farrell finishing with three tackles. A week earlier, each played 15 snaps against the Minnesota Vikings.

“We have the same perspective, we’re both rookies,” Butler said of himself and Farrell. “We just bounce things off of each other after practice and work off with each other during practice.”

As well as lean on the veterans.

“Kendal Vickers has been a friend of mine since my freshman year at Tennessee,” Butler added. “He’s been great. Also, Bilal Nichols. He’s been in this league for five or six years now. But really, I mean, whether it’s Tyler, whether it’s A.B., whether it’s Hank, everybody in the room has been pouring [information] into myself and Neil and the rest of the team. And we try to [absorb it] by just giving our all, day by day.”

The rookies spoke to the media the same day a mini-melee broke out between Crosby and third-round pick Dylan Parham, an interior offensive lineman.

“Everybody is just out there competing, trying to make one another better,” Farrell said. “That’s all we do every day. Try to push each other, go hard and give it the best we’ve got. Every day.

“I feel like everybody gears for improvement. I’ve got to get better at fundamentals and techniques. That’s just coming in, working every day at practice and just doing what I have to do to get better.”

The return of Hankins, though, showed just what an impact he can have for the D-line in particular, and the entire defense in general. Especially since he was playing mostly against Dolphins starters and controlling the line of scrimmage in his 13 snaps.

“A position that I would say, for the most part, has been a little bit thin during the course of camp, has now kind of taken a boost here,” McDaniels said of Hankins returning, while anticipating the debut of Nichols. “Now it feels like we have some more depth up front, some more combinations.

“We bumped Kendal Vickers out to the end a little bit this last week because we have a little bit more depth inside. It allows us to make some moves and some decisions that maybe we didn’t have the flexibility to make earlier, which affects and impacts the entire defense.”

Yes, better late than never.

HENDERSON, Nev. — When Matthew Butler‘s cell phone came to life in the fifth round of the NFL draft last month, the former Tennessee defensive lineman did not recognize the number on the screen.

“It just showed ‘Las Vegas, Nevada,'” Butler said. “So, my heart stopped a little bit.”

Indeed, when it comes to the Las Vegas Raiders and defensive linemen, the 702 area code has been getting a lot of work this offseason. Because besides drafting Butler with the No. 175 overall pick, the Raiders also selected LSU’s Neil Farrell Jr. one round earlier. Las Vegas then signed a pair of undrafted rookie D-linemen in Notre Dame’s Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa and Iowa’s Zach VanValkenburg, both of whom are listed as ends.

This after signing a gaggle of veteran defensive tackles in free agency — from Bilal Nichols to Kyle Peko to Vernon Butler to PJ Johnson to Tashawn Bower to Andrew Billings — while re-signing Johnathan Hankins and retaining Kendal Vickers.

Oh yeah, and the Raiders traded away defensive end rusher Yannick Ngakoue and signed edge rusher Chandler Jones to pair with Pro Bowler Maxx Crosby.

The Raiders’ new regime re-shuffled its D-line deck … and then some.

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“We didn’t have many [defensive linemen] on the roster to start with,” said new Raiders coach Josh McDaniels. “There was a lot of opportunity at that position.”

To be fair, McDaniels was speaking specifically of the two interior defensive line positions. To be more general, with the Raiders valuing versatility in all of their players, they will show a variety of new fronts under new defensive coordinator Patrick Graham.

A 4-3 base, as has been the Raiders’ look for a decade-plus? Sure.

What about a 3-4, which more closely resembles Graham’s sensibilities? As McDaniels has said since he was hired in January, a base defense is basically a nickel now. So you need interchangeable pieces, and the more positions one can play, the more playtime said player will get.

Which is why you shouldn’t read too much into Jones being listed as a linebacker on the team’s transactions page, or Farrell as a defensive lineman, or Tagovailoa, who trends as a classic “tweener,” as an end.

“During my career at LSU,” Farrell said, “I played defensive end. I played defensive tackle. I played nose guard. So whatever the team needs, I’m willing to do.”

Keep in mind, Clelin Ferrell, the No. 4 pick of the 2020 draft, is still on the roster and might translate better as an end in a 3-4 scheme. As is Malcolm Koonce, who was drafted in the third round last year, had two sacks in his first two games as a defensive end but also started seeing practice reps at outside linebacker late in the season.

Plus, the AFC West is loaded at quarterback, with Russell Wilson joining the Denver Broncos to add to Patrick Mahomes with the Kansas City Chiefs and Justin Herbert with the Los Angeles Chargers.

Then there’s this: the Raiders have ranked in the bottom half of the NFL in scoring defense in 19 straight seasons, the longest such streak by any team since 1970, according to ESPN Stats & Information.

No wonder Las Vegas has gone so heavy on the D-line this offseason.

In Farrell, the Raiders got a 6-foot-4, 319-pound fifth-year senior who had 45 tackles, 9.5 for a loss, with two sacks for LSU last fall. Pro Football Focus had the two-time SEC Academic Honor Roll member fourth in FBS with 24 run stops, 10 of which were either for no gain or a loss.

Butler, at 6-4, 295 pounds, was also a fifth-year senior who blossomed last season. He played an SEC-high 726 snaps and led Tennessee’s defensive linemen in tackles (47) while being fourth in tackles for loss (8.5) and third in sacks (5) with seven QB hurries and a forced fumble. PFF had him in the top 10 of SEC D-linemen in rush defense.

The 6-2, 270-pound Tagovailoa-Amosa, who played five years at Notre Dame (sensing a trend yet?) and was a team captain, had two sacks last season while the 6-4, 263-pound VanValkenburg played three years at Iowa after transferring from Division II Hillsdale. He had five sacks as a senior.

As McDaniels put it, the Raiders have been taking “a few swings” on the defensive line this offseason, from free agency through the draft and the UDFA signings.

“Like I said, we’re going to need some depth there in camp anyway,” McDaniels said. “We are going to improve the competition at each position that we can, and I think we’ve put a group in there that’ll do that now.”