We have the first word of a Raiders pending free agent returning to the team. Linebacker Nicholas Morrow will be back as he will re-sign with the team according to a source.
As we reported in late February, the four-year veteran linebacker tested free agency. After two days fielding offers, Morrow ultimately decided a return to the Raiders was his best option.
Morrow coming off a season in which he was easily the best linebacker on the Raiders. He also proved he was a three-down player.
“I don’t think that I’m a guy who needs to be limited to just third-down packages,” Morrow told me last month. “You think about what I did this year; I played all three. I play SAM, I play WILL, and I played MIKE. Some games I played all three of them in one game.”
Even with the Raiders having made big investments in linebackers Cory Littleton and Nick Kwiatkoski, it was Morrow who led the Raiders in solo tackles (62) and was second in both tackles for loss (8) and sacks (3).
It so happens that Morrow is a great fit for new Gus Bradley’s system, which he noted was similar to the scheme Ken Norton runs and Norton was his DC his rookie year.
“There is some similarity between his scheme and Ken Norton’s scheme as far as structure with the SAM linebacker on the ball and you have two essentially off ball linebackers, whether that’s WILL or MIKE,” said Morrow. “Those positions, they’re almost interchangeable. They have different coverage responsibilities, but they’re almost the same. For me I would just be an off ball linebacker, whether that’s WILL or MIKE whichever one. But I get my daily dose of film every day and I’ve seen a lot of Gus Bradley just because he’s the new DC and I want to see what they’re running, the success that they had, so there’s a lot of similarity to what they did to what I did as a rookie as far as the cover-3 stuff. Now, we ran a little bit more match than they did, but there’s some similarity to it, so I’m familiar with what they do.”
Presumably Morrow would line up at the WILL linebacker spot with Littleton at SAM and Kwiatkoski at MIKE. And the Raiders have their starting trio.
Details on the contract are not yet available.