Clelin Ferrell

With training camp approaching, attention is being turned to each team’s top positional battles and some of the players most in danger of not making final roster cuts. While it is inevitable that a number of players, including notable names, suffer that fate in the build-up to the season, it is another matter when it happens to former top-five picks. 

Clelin Ferrell “might be on high alert” regarding his roster status, per ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez. The 2019 No. 4 overall pick has proven doubts over his draft stock to be well-founded. After a 4.5 sack rookie season, Ferrell has seen his playing time drop over the past two years. He didn’t register a start in 2021, playing only 24% of defensive snaps. The presence of not only classmate Maxx Crosby, but also Yannick Ngakoue, relegated him to a backup role.

Ngakoue has seen been replaced by Chandler Jones, so Ferrell is likely to once again be shut out of a starting spot on the edge. As a result, it will be interesting to see how far new defensive coordinator Patrick Graham takes the experiment of using Ferrell at defensive tackle throughout the remainder of the offseason. Significant playing time along the interior of the team’s d-line could help extend his career in Las Vegas, or generate a market for him elsewhere.

Just like fellow 2019 first-rounders Josh Jacobs and Johnathan Abram, Ferrell had his fifth-year option declined this offseason. That leaves him need of a much more productive season in 2022 than the three he has put together to date, as he moves towards free agency for the first time in his career. Before looking that far ahead, however, he needs to ensure he will have a roster spot come the fall – something which is in doubt to a far greater degree than many would have expected when he entered the league.

Clelin Ferrell, the No. 4 overall selection of the 2019 draft, was the first draft choice made by then-Raiders GM Mike Mayock. The pick was widely panned at the time, and it did not get better with age, as Ferrell has failed to make much of an impact in his first three years in the Silver-and-Black. 

Mayock was fired in January, and the club’s new regime, fronted by GM Dave Ziegler and HC Josh McDaniels, declined Ferrell’s fifth-year option in May (they also declined the options for the Raiders’ other two first-round picks in 2019, Josh Jacobs and Johnathan Abram). As such, 2022 will be a platform year for Ferrell, who will earn $4.77MM this season.

As Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal writes, Ferrell was seeing significant time at defensive tackle during last week’s minicamp. That would constitute a noteworthy position change for a player who established himself as a defensive end during his college career. Upon his arrival in the NFL, preference was quickly given at that spot to fourth-rounder Maxx Crosby, though, who has emerged as a franchise cornerstone and been signed to a sizeable extension.

The presence of Crosby and other edge rushers – including Yannick Ngakoue in 2021 – has led to serious drops in Ferrell’s playing time; his path to an increase in snaps would be further blocked by Chandler Jones this year. That makes a position switch a logical experiment at this point in the offseason. The Raiders have seen several changes along the interior of their defensive line, and brought in Tyler Lancaster, Vernon Butler, Bilal Nichols, Andrew Billings and Kyle Peko in free agency, while also using Day 3 picks on Neil Farrell Jr. and Matthew Butler in the draft.

At six-foot-four, 265 pounds, Ferrell could have the frame to operate on the inside this season. Given how his career has panned out so far, and the team’s resulting actions, his performance – regardless of where he lines up – will go a long way to determining his future.

Adam La Rose contributed to this post.