With the start of the new league year, the Raiders officially retained three players on RFA tenders. They kept quarterback Nathan Peterman and offensive tackle David Sharpe on original round tenders. Peterman was originally drafted in the fifth-round draft pick and Sharpe in the fourth. The third was linebacker Nicholas Morrow who was given a second-round tender.
I guess the Raiders wanted to make sure they didn’t have another team swipe Morrow away from them. His second-round tender all but ensuring he is not going anywhere.
Morrow went undrafted, which would have meant if they lost him, they would have gotten nothing in return. Instead, he goes from making near league minimum to $3.26 million this coming season.
Peterman and Sharpe receive salaries of $2.13 million this season.
Morrow has started 18 games over three seasons in Oakland. He stepped up to start five games late in 2018 and then last season started a career-high 8 games following the suspension of Vontaze Burfict. He had 52 of his 67 tackles on the season in the nine games he played extensively, adding an interception, four pass breakups, four quarterback hits, and two tackles for loss.
Recently the numbers came out for performance-based pay, and Morrow had the 13th-most in the league with $530K added to his pay amount for the 2019 season. With his value as a reserve linebacker and special teams player, the Raiders figured they take extra precaution and give him a high tender.
[vertical-gallery id=63661]
[lawrence-newsletter]