In some ways, a breakout player and a surprise player can overlap. But not entirely. Breakout players tend to show signs of making the leap. Surprise players often come out of nowhere. Like, who saw that coming? Which, I suppose, is a way of breaking out, but are we going to split hairs over handing out more awards? I didn’t think so.

Here are the Raiders surprise players on both sides of the ball.

Surprise player: Offense

TE Darren Waller

Some of the Raiders coaches may have seen this coming, but few other people did. Waller was a former sixth-round pick who had never started more than three games in a season with a career total of 12 catches for 103 yards when the Raiders plucked him off the Ravens’ practice squad late last season.

Waller surpassed that total by the 2019 season opener. By week three, he had more catches (13) and yards (134) than he had in his entire career before joining the Raiders.

By the season’s end, Waller had the second most catches (90) and yards (1145) than any tight end in Raiders’ history. Anyone who told me they expected that I would call a liar. I don’t know if Waller expected that.

The team knew by midseason what kind of talent they had on their hands and moved decisively to lock him up long term. And with his history with substance abuse, there’s a lot of people who are rooting for him to live up to the faith the Raiders are putting in him.

Surprise player: Defense

LB Will Compton

Late last season, the Raiders signed three linebackers – Brandon Marshall, Will Compton, and Preston Brown. Of those three, the one that seemed least likely to make an impact was Compton. Marshall had been signed this offseason as a former longtime starter for the Broncos, so it seemed when they re-signed him that he could step right in and play.

Less than a week later, he was released again. Brown was a former third-round pick who had started every game of his career dating back to his rookie season in 2014. He appeared in one game for the Raiders, seeing 17 snaps and was waived two days later. Compton had started five games combined for two different teams and hadn’t been on a roster in 2019.

Despite all the background to suggest Compton wasn’t long for the Raiders, he was the one who was put on the field four days after they signed him, appeared in every game the second half of the season, and named a starter for the final four games.

When he was given more snaps, they always translated to tackles, including putting up 12 combined tackles in the Week 16 win over the Chargers. The last time he was a full-time starter was 2016 in Washington for Jon’s brother Jay and he put up 106 tackles that year. He kept earning his roster spot over five seasons for Jay, maybe he can do the same for Jon.