The Raiders had a pretty underrated secondary last season, especially with Casey Hayward playing so well. While Trayvon Mullen only played five games, the entire cornerback room played well for Las Vegas.
But this year, there has been a ton of turnover already at that position. Hayward left in free agency and Mullen was traded to Arizona. They even lost a good cornerback like Brandon Facyson in free agency, as well.
That’s why Anthony Averett is going to need to have a huge season in order for the Raiders to have any sort of success on defense.
In a recent article by Ben Linsey of Pro Football Focus, he wrote about every team’s biggest X-factor heading into the 2022 season. For the Raiders, that was none other than Averett. Here is what he had to say about the veteran cornerback for the Raiders:
“That puts a lot of pressure on Anthony Averett to produce in a full-time starting role. Averett allowed 739 yards into his coverage (sixth most in NFL among cornerbacks) in 2021 in a starting role with Baltimore last season.”
Averett has been a part-time player for most of his career, but he was pushed into a starting role last season when Marcus Peters went down with an injury. He is not a big cornerback, but he does battle and tackles well.
Averett will be one of the team’s outside cornerbacks when they line up against the Chargers on Sunday. He’ll likely be tasked with slowing down Mike Williams and that’s an awfully tough matchup for him.
But those are the sort of matchups the Raiders will need him to win weekly if they want to get back to the playoffs this year. Needless to say, Averett is going to be an important player for the Raiders this season.
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