Keelan Doss is headed back to Oakland after all. Doss became a breakout star on HBO’s ‘Hard Knocks’, but was released by the Raiders at final cuts and ended up signing to the Jaguars’ practice squad.
When the Raiders cut Antonio Brown, they tried to sign Doss back. Jacksonville then agreed to pay him a rookie minimum salary while on the practice squad in order to keep him. But now the Raiders have upped their offer to something he simply couldn’t refuse, and Doss is signing back with the team, according to Mike Garafolo of NFL Network (Twitter link). To lure him back, Oakland is giving Doss a whopping $300K signing bonus and $495K fully guaranteed base salary.
It’s a massive step-up for Doss. In just a couple of days, he went from making a non-guaranteed practice squad salary to getting $795K guaranteed. Giving a player a multi-hundred thousand dollar signing bonus to come off another team’s practice squad is nearly unprecedented, and shows how badly the Raiders wanted receiver help after Brown’s departure.
Doss is an undrafted rookie from UC Davis. A native of the Bay Area, he’ll be completing a homecoming that was widely documented on the popular HBO series. Doss shined at times during the preseason, and set school records for touchdowns and all-purpose yards.
Good for him.
Def the ‘feel good’ story of the Hard Knocks documentary- you could see how much Gruden liked the kid. I hope he does well, hopefully Derek Carr can form a relationship similar to the one he had in camp w N Peterman. Hard not to root for him.
Poor Nick Foles gets hurt and Doss leaves town
Oh well, what can you do?
Talk about taking the long way to get something done
What a relief. Doss has a chance to become a pro-bowler and losing him because of Antonio Brown would’ve irked Raider fans indefinitely.
What a difference between this kid and AB. Good for him.
Did you know that Doss did NOT want to play for Oakland. JaX paid him the league minimum to stay on their practice squad.
Keelan and Hunter the future in Vegas
At least there’s one silver lining in the AB nightmare.
Lol so I guess that he was Gruden and the Raiders story as well in the end
Good to have Doss back; obviously wont be able to replace AB but he’s decent.
On another note, sorry for off topic but there wasn’t an article on it but RIP to former Raiders LB Neiron Ball. Great guy. Tough loss. Gone way too soon at 27. Prayers.