Sometimes a player just seems like their addition to a team just has to happen. For the Raiders’ new coaching staff, they’ve been looking to familiar faces a lot. Just the staff alone were almost entirely coaches with ties to Josh McDaniels and GM Dave Ziegler. They have taken a similar approach with many of the players they’ve signed of late.
Just today, they officially announced the addition of RB Brandon Bolden and FB Jakob Johnson, both of whom played the past few years in McDaniels’s offense in New England. Their biggest free agent signing thus far has been Chandler Jones, who played for the Patriots to begin his career.
So too did Logan Ryan who was a 2013 third round pick by the Patriots and spent four seasons in New England, winning two Super Bowls, and was a fulltime starter for the second one.
That’s not the half of it either. Raiders new defensive coordinator, Patrick Graham was on the Patriots defensive staff in New England during Ryan’s first three seasons there. Then when Graham took over as DC in New York in 2020, he made Ryan his starting safety.
Ryan has started 30 games over the past two season in New York under Graham. And Ryan is a fan of Graham. This is what Ryan said about his DC after the team’s win over the Raiders last season.
“I think Pat’s as good as any coach in the league of listening to his players and listening to his coaches and not being afraid to take advice from the players,” said Ryan. “We talked about changing the defense a little bit in the fourth quarter that led to some big plays that a coach told Pat to run or a player told Pat to run, Pat was willing to call it and willing to use that. I think he does a great job of adjusting throughout the year and listening to his players saying, ‘Although we thought this was going to be what we practiced all week, actually I think we need to run this,’ and he does a great job in implementing that.”
Oh, did I mention Ryan was just cut by the Giants in a move to clear up cap space?
You simply won’t find a player with stronger ties to the Raiders coaching staff than Ryan. The 31-year-old DB could lend veteran experience on a championship team and familiarity with Graham’s defensive scheme, both valuable.
Last season, Ryan lined up at both safety positions, putting up 117 combined tackles and eight pass breakups with no interceptions while lining up at both safety positions.
The Raiders would want him to line up at the strong safety spot, where Johnathan Abram has lined up the past two seasons. Last year’s second round pick Tre’von Moehrig lines up at free safety.
Abram was serviceable last season, rebounding from a terrible 2020 season. But he also suffered his second serious shoulder injury of his career, ending his season after week 14. His first shoulder injury happened in his first ever game as a rookie.
So far the team has had no qualms about moving on from holdovers, trading away Yannick Ngakoue and letting all of their free agents hit the market. Even opting not to place tenders on some restricted free agents such as fullback Alec Ingold.
In the case of Ingold, that turned out to be in order to replace him with the aforementioned Jakob Johnson who was not tendered by the Patriots.
Ingold was an outstanding fullback and special teams player. He just wasn’t Josh McDaniels’s guy. Jakob Johnson is. Just like Bolden.
Ryan was Patrick Graham’s guy. Just like Chandler Jones. Just seems like Ryan to the Raiders makes too much sense not to happen.