The Raiders’ historic offensive pace slowed Monday night, and the team is looking into an interesting adjustment on its new-look offensive line.
First-round pick Alex Leatherwood worked at right guard Thursday, with former third-rounder Brandon Parker lining up at right tackle, The Athletic’s Tashan Reed tweets. Raiders OC Greg Olson deemed this new arrangement an attempt at getting the team’s best five O-linemen on the field together, via the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Vincent Bonsignore (on Twitter).
While this might not be a long-term adjustment, Leatherwood sliding to guard is certainly notable. This year’s No. 17 overall pick worked as Alabama’s left tackle during his junior and senior seasons. However, Leatherwood’s first foray into first-string Crimson Tide duty came at guard — as a sophomore in 2018. Leatherwood has struggled at right tackle with Las Vegas. The Raiders’ latest surprise first-round pick not only grades as Pro Football Focus’ worst tackle but has produced the lowest pass-blocking grade of any rookie through four games in the site’s 16-season history, PFF’s Austin Gayle tweets.
Parker has not been a regular starter since his 2018 rookie season. He served as a spot starter over the ensuing two seasons, lining up with the Raiders’ first-stringers seven times from 2019-20. The team’s current issues may lead to another opportunity. The Raiders jettisoned their three most experienced O-linemen in March, trading away Gabe Jackson, Rodney Hudson and Trent Brown. That has led to some predictable early issues up front.
Las Vegas is currently down starting guards Richie Incognito and Denzelle Good. The former is on short-term IR, while the latter is out for the season. The team has second-year guard John Simpson and Jermaine Eluemunor at guard, though neither is faring particularly well. While Derek Carr has offered up a strong start, the Raiders rank 27th in rushing.
Only in pro sports, can you invest $10m per season into a losing coach and still be profitable! Gruden sucks, but not nearly as bad as the owner.
The Raiders as a team have been in all of about 6 games for the past three years to include the 2021 season. There are seven (8) coaches that honestly cannot say that since 2002. Please list the teams in the NFL that consider The Raiders a bye week since Gruden has taken over, if you can.
Mark Davis sucks because he drives a Prius, flies coach, and people don’t like his hair cut. (don’t take it personal that your haircut is not on national TV) He hires football people to do their job and he stays out of their way. He also orchestrated the building of an ultra modern stadium and practice facility for his team. Mark puts charities and fund raising before self promotion and professional recognition.
Both Suck, prove me wrong.
If you think a 22-30 record is a winning record, Jon’s record since returning, is good; then the discussion is over. To me, a person’s/team’s record says it all.
If look at his whole career, 115-111 a .513% winning percentage. That’s according to Pro Football Reference. Do you still consider that good? To me, that’s average.
As for Mark, he lived off the “But I’m a poor billionaire’ for ages. Only to have both LV & the NFL help fund his stadium. He’s living off his dad’s name is whole life and that’s about it.
So you agree then that the Raider’s have gone from a basic guarantee win / bye week for 75-80 percent of the league to a team that everyone must account for and is expected to make a run.
Yep — that coach sucks
It sounds like you have a personal issue with Mark Davis.
I have never met nor care to meet any owner. I judge HC’s and owners by W/L’s. Mark loses, as does Jon. Enjoy another ‘what if’ season.
“Gruden sucks, but not nearly as bad as the owner.”
You still cannot back your slander. Please explain how Gruden sucks and yet is still better then the man who hired him.
Simple request.
Leatherwood, Arnette, Ferrell-All the guys that EVERYONE said were reaches? Guess what? They were reaches.
Nothing quite like the feeling of your 1st round pick failing to be good enough to play the position you drafted them for.
He wasn’t even doing that-he was playing on the right side instead of the left. It’s actually extremely impressive that Vegas was able to do so well on offense despite these insane decisions that they made along their offensive line-which everyone also was perplexed by (except possibly the Trent Brown decision). Agreed with both of you.
The thing is Mike Mayock acknowledged at the time that other people would think each of those picks were reaches but he said the Raiders evaluations of them made them worthy of being picked that high. If Mark Davis is paying attention he would tell Mike Mayock to go back to NFL network and tell Gruden he no longer has final say on draft picks.
Pro Football Focus viewed Leatherwood as a reach in the first round. They were right.
Leatherwood didn’t look like a starting tackle. Certainly had the size and weight but his footwork was slow. Moving him to Guard is a smart long term move.
I’ve only seen Leatherwood this season against my Steelers, and he was AWful. Granted TJ Watt makes a lot of tackles look bad, but both TJ and Melvin Ingram were flying by Leatherwood as if he didn’t even see them. And he didn’t look any better run blocking either. Maybe at guard, where he doesn’t always have a guy lined up right in his face, he can show a little better.
Just curious. Did you see any of that in the second half?
Switching a rookie to a new position in mid-season doesn’t seem like a great idea.
Raiders being Raiders. When everyone on draft night says ‘wait who?’ In the 1st round you know you messed up. Just like DHB.