Offseason workouts came and went. Then rookie minicamp. Then Organized Training Activities (OTAs) and then minicamp. Gone. None of them happened because the coronavirus had other plans. Now the latest news has rosters trimming from 90 to as few as 75 players for training camp, leaving many undrafted and first-year roster hopefuls sweating it out to see if they will get their shot.
In total, there are eight undrafted rookies on the Raiders’ current roster along with 11 first-year players. If most years are any indication, a few of them would have been able to spend the offseason practices and training camp proving themselves and find themselves on the roster come the final cutdown.
They won’t have that chance. I have seen some suggest that reducing the roster by 10-15 players wouldn’t make much difference. That teams have almost the entire roster already decided with very little room for anyone to break in, and 75 players would still mean 22 more players come to camp than will be on the final roster, so it’s not a big deal.
I think it is. And there are a few current Raiders players who would agree with me.
1. WR Tyrell Williams
Williams had intriguing size at 6-4, 205 pounds, but coming out of Western Oregon University, he would need to prove he wasn’t just dominant against lower-level competition.
Williams was waived out of camp but had shown enough to be invited back onto the practice squad and eventually called up to the active roster. After a rookie season with just two catches, he blew up to catch 69 passes for 1059 yards in his second season.
Williams didn’t even make the roster initially. So, it seems likely that had that roster been trimmed by 15 players, he could have been among them. Before ever even getting a chance to take the field and prove his worth.
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