Tag: OJ Howard

Raiders bring back TE Jacob Hollister

Raiders have re-signed TE Jacob Hollister who spent part of last season with the team.

Wednesday the Raiders made what is tantamount to their corresponding move after the release of tight end OJ Howard. They brought back Jacob Hollister.

The veteran tight end spent last offseason and training camp with the Raiders before landing on injured reserve. He was later released and signed with the Vikings before returning to the Raiders midway through the season. He would return to Las Vegas midway through last season, appearing in three games.

Josh McDaniels knows Hollister from New England where Hollister’s career began in 2017 and he would spend two seasons with the Patriots. Clearly McDaniels liked what Hollister brings to the table more than what he saw from Howard over the past few months.

In six NFL seasons, Hollister has 83 career catches for 707 yards and seven touchdowns.

Las Vegas Raiders release TE O.J. Howard

The former Alabama tight end was let go by the Raiders as the 2023 regular season rapidly approaches.

Former Alabama Football tight end O.J. Howard has been released by the Las Vegas Raiders with roughly a month to go until the start of the 2023 NFL regular season.

Howard, who played for the Crimson Tide from 2013-2016, won a College Football Playoff national championship and then was drafted in the first round of the 2016 draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  His career in Tampa lasted five years and featured a Super Bowl win with quarterback Tom Brady.

He spent the 2022 season with the Houston Texans after being released by the Buffalo Bills weeks before the start of the season. He appeared in 13 games for Houston, where he had 10 catches for 145 yards and two touchdowns.

In March, he signed with the Raiders. Now, he returns to free agency and will look to sign elsewhere before the 2023 season kicks off.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Howard and other former Alabama players in the NFL as the 2023 season approaches.

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Raiders waive TE OJ Howard, re-sign QB Chase Garbers

TE OJ Howard among 3 waived as Raiders bring back QB Chase Garbers

Apparently to ring in the first day in pads, the Raiders made a string of moves. The team waived several players today including tight end OJ Howard.

Howard was one of the team’s early free agent signings this offseason and was expected to be the third tight end on the roster behind Michael Mayer and Austin Hooper. So, it’s a bit of a surprise that he was released.

In fact, the Raiders had an in-house interview with Howard not two days ago with the tweet reading that Howard is “ready to show out the Silver and Black.”

So, yeah, this is awkward. Maybe they meant ‘ready to be shown out’?

In an apparent corresponding move, the quarterback Chase Garbers has been re-signed by the team according to his agent.

Previous reports had the Raiders signing former Chiefs LB Darius Harris, which means there should be one more addition either not yet official or coming down the pike. We’ll keep you updated.

5 big questions on offense as Raiders wrap up minicamp

Raiders have a lot of pretty big questions facing them as they enter the heart of the offseason. Here are 5 facing the offense.

Every offseason brings questions that need answers. For this Raiders team, they may have more questions than answers. Some of these questions are no small thing.

Last week the Raiders wrapped up their offseason practices with their three-day mandatory minicamp. That means they have now entered the longest and final portion of the offseason. The next time these players convene will be training camp at the end of July.

They enter this six weeks with many things unsettled. Most of which will still be unsettled when camp begins, giving them a lot to think about over the next six weeks.

Alabama listed as a top-five finalist for the No. 1 TE in the 2025 class

Crimson Tide in contention for the top TE in the 2025 recruiting cycle

The one position where Alabama hasn’t always found the most success under Nick Saban is at tight end. O.J. Howard was once a first-round pick, Irv Smith Jr. was a second-round pick, and Cam Latu went in the third round of the 2023 NFL draft, but outside of these guys, there hasn’t been a ton of pro potential from the position.

The Crimson Tide would love to get a key contributor from the TE position and they are heavily pursuing four-star TE, Davon Mitchell, of the 2025 class. He is the top-ranked TE in the class and a top-20 player regardless of position coming out of Los Alamitos, CA. At 6-foot-4 and 245 pounds he has a massive frame and would be an outstanding asset for any quarterback.

Depending on the site you look at, he varies between being a four and five-star prospect. This week, Mitchell listed his top-five schools that included Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M and Miami. Hopefully, the staff down in Tuscaloosa can earn his services.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to monitor Davon Mitchells recruitment.

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A look back at the Bucs’ only other pick at No. 19: O.J. Howard

Tampa Bay will hope their second-ever pick at No. 19 will work out much better.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are picking No. 19 in the first round of the 2023 NFL draft. And interestingly enough, that wasn’t the first time.

The Bucs also picked there in 2017 after going 9-7 in the 2016 season and narrowly missing the playoffs. With that pick, the team selected the only tight end it has ever picked in the first round — Alabama’s O.J. Howard.

Howard was universally regarded as the best tight end prospect in the draft despite only catching seven touchdowns in his entire career at Alabama. His stock particularly rose during the Senior Bowl in 2017 and he participated in every part of the NFL Combine. Howard was mocked in the top 10 in numerous mock drafts from 2017, and it didn’t look as if Tampa Bay would hope to be in the running.

But then draft night came, and suddenly, they were. Multiple trade-ups for quarterbacks shook up the draft order, and Howard fell right to the Bucs at No. 19 where Jason Licht took advantage. Many at the time were gleeful, but did Howard end up living up to his billing with the Buccaneers?

Not exactly, to say the least.

Howard had a very productive rookie year, catching 26 passes for 432 yards and six touchdowns before heading to injured reserve. He scored five more touchdowns in 2018, but once again hit injured reserve toward the end of the year. While there were injury concerns, his 11 touchdowns in two years showed promise — promise that he wouldn’t live up to.

He caught one touchdown in 2019 while missing two games. When Tom Brady came to Tampa Bay in 2020, he caught a touchdown pass from the GOAT in a victory over the Chargers but tore his Achilles and once again went on injured reserve. He played in 2021, but caught just 14 passes for 135 yards and a touchdown.

Howard became a free agent, and the Bucs weren’t interested in continuing their partnership. He signed a contract with the Bills, but got cut after preseason before signing with the Texans. He played with Houston for one year in 2022 and caught two touchdowns, all in the first game of the season, and recently signed a contract with the Las Vegas Raiders for 2023.

All in all, Howard is a pick Licht would likely want back, especially given that stars like Tre’Davious White and T.J. Watt were both drafted after him. He’ll get a chance to redeem the pick from 2017 with his second try from No. 19 in 2023, but it’s very unlikely that the Bucs will go tight end this time around.

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Las Vegas Raiders sign Former Alabama TE O.J. Howard

O.J. Howard gets fresh start with the Las Vegas Raiders.

Former Alabama tight end O.J. Howard was selected No. 19 overall in the first round of the 2017 NFL draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He will now spend the 2023 season with the Las Vegas Raiders, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

Howard played in Tampa Bay through the 2021 season. He then spent time on the Buffalo Bills but was released before the start of the 2022 regular season. He then signed with the Houston Texans.

Last season, he appeared in 13 games, where he reeled in 10 receptions for 145 yards and two touchdowns.

Now, Howard gets a fresh start on a team that just lost one of the top tight ends in the league.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Howard and other former Alabama players as the 2023 offseason progresses.

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O.J. Howard on the challenge of playing with short rest on Thursday night

Howard made it clear that the abridged practice schedule presents a unique challenge to teams playing on Thursday nights

Thursday night games are tough, especially for teams that are struggling like the Houston Texans have this season. It takes a significant amount of preparation to put together a cohesive game plan, and with less time to get ready after a game on Sunday, teams are often up against the gun to make the best possible adjustments for the primetime matchup.

Houston is in a particularly tough position this week facing the undefeated Philadelphia Eagles, and are heavy underdogs heading into Thursday’s game. Tight end O.J. Howard commented on the challenge of preparing for the matchup at the Texans’ Monday press conference, telling the media that the abridged practice schedule will be hard to overcome.

“They’re tough because of the quick turnaround,” Howard said to a reporter who asked about the difficulty of Thursday night games. “If you go out there and play a physical game like our defense yesterday, the running back has 32 carries. They’re out there banging for I don’t know how many plays they played, but that’s a lot. Obviously, we had to go out there and run the ball and be physical. Then like you said it’s a quick turnaround. It [Thursday Night Football] probably won’t change. It’s definitely tough for us players, but it’s what we’ve got to deal with right now. It definitely can be really tough.”

Though the outcome of this game is already decided in the eyes of many fans and media members who are aware of the vastly different situations that the Texans and Eagles are in, Philadelphia is in the same position as Houston regarding their amended schedule for preparation this week. The Texans will be a long shot to win no matter what given their status as the AFC’s worst team by record, but in a league where anything can happen on a given week, they might be able to leverage the lack of practice time to their advantage.

O.J. Howard on Texans’ offensive identity: ‘We want to be physical’

Howard said that the #Texans’ offense thrives when the running game is able to carry the offense

The Houston Texans’ offense has been sluggish all year, but not for lack of effort to fix their sundry issues in both the rushing and passing games. The unquestionable leader of the offense has been an unlikely star, rookie running back Dameon Pierce, who has been the team’s top contributor since week 1.

Tight end O.J. Howard commented on the team’s struggle to move the ball on Monday after their brutal Week 8 loss at the hands of the Tennessee Titans. Establishing the run, Howard said, was the team’s primary focus, and will lead to more openings in the passing game in the coming weeks.

“I think it starts with the running game,” Howard explained of the offense’s identity. “We want to be physical. We’re a running football team. We’ve got great running backs. I think when you can get that going it allows the passing game to open up. When you can’t get it going, that’s what hurts the passing game. I think when we establish our dominance in the run game, everything goes and it allows us to open up and we can probably run more three tight end sets and get the pass going a little more. It starts with the running game at first.”

While his words won’t go far without some game planning to back them up, Howard’s assertion that the team lives and dies by the production they get from their running backs is well-founded. Certainly, when the Texans’ offense becomes one-dimensional their success is tied to the abilities of quarterback Davis Mills, who has been serviceable as a bridge starter but will likely be relegated to a backup role after this season.

A challenging matchup against the NFL’s only undefeated team looms on the horizon for Houston, and with Thursday fast approaching, the Texans will need to figure out some kind of wrinkle that will free up the running game in primetime. If they can’t, expect a blowout against the Philadelphia Eagles.

Houston Texans sign former Alabama TE O.J. Howard

O.J. Howard signs with Houston Texans for 2022 season

Former Alabama Crimson Tide standout tight end and the No. 19 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, O.J. Howard, has signed with the Houston Texans.

Howard spent the first five years of his career in Tampa Bay with the Buccaneers before signing a one-year deal with the Buffalo Bills in March. Howard was let go from the Bills as a part of the final roster cuts, but the Houston Texans quickly scooped up the former national champion.

It is a great fit for Howard as the Texans are in dire need of tight end help and Howard will have a chance to see a lot of snaps and receptions to help boost his market value. Howard will be a free agent after the 2022 season.

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