Tag: Robert Spillane

Raiders standouts on Day 2 of joint practices with 49ers

Raiders standouts on Day 2 of joint practices with 49ers

That’s a wrap for Raiders joint practices with the 49ers. It was an eventful couple days in some way. If by those ways you mean the Raiders defense which was getting their hands on the ball several times.

Here are the standouts from today’s practice:

LB Robert Spillane

The linebacker who has had all of one takeaway in his career, had a couple interceptions today. One came in 11-on-11s, the other in 7-on-7s.

CB Marcus Peters

The veteran former All Pro had interceptions on both days of the joint practices and his swagger is clearly rubbing off on the rest of the secondary.

WR Jakobi Meyers

With Hunter Renfrow not practicing, and Davante Adams going down injured on the first play of team sessions, Meyers was the only starter left. He had a touchdown on a slant to finish off the first drive of team sessions.

All QB’s

All three Raiders quarterbacks showed well today. Jimmy Garoppollo led the first team to a touchdown to Jakobi Meyers and two-point conversion to DeAndre Carter. Then Brian Hoyer nearly had a three-play touchdown drive which began with consecutive long completions to Keelan Cole and ended with a deep ball to Phillip Dorsett who wasn’t able to keep both feet inbounds in the back of the end zone. Aidan O’Connell had the best long ball completion of the day to fellow rookie Tre Tucker.

DE Issac Rochell

On more than one rep in DL vs OL drills, Rochell got through to the QB. First, driving his man back and then putting on a swim move to get into the pocket. Then getting his man off balance and shucking him aside to get pressure.

DE Maxx Crosby

Crosby was lined up across from the 49ers right tackle Colton McKivitz for a rep in drills. He made mincemeat of him, first leading him upfield before spinning inside to crash the pocket.

DT Adam Butler

The best spin move from the inside came from Butler who was able to leave his man flat footed with the move to get pressure.

Raiders LB coach was ‘shocked’ at how much bigger Divine Deablo is this year

Divine Deablo ‘shocked’ his LB coach with how big he was ‘He doesn’t look like a safety playing linebacker. He now looks like a linebacker.’

When the Raiders selected Divine Deablo in the third round of the 2021 draft, they knew he was to be a project. The former college safety was looked at as a linebacker from day one. But that transition doesn’t happen overnight. For some, it may never happen.

With the NFL transitioning away from traditional linebackers to ones who can drop back into coverage the majority of the time, having DB instincts and range is important. But it is still the linebacker position, which means they must have the size. to handle it.

“I think where the game is today, I think it’s a lot of passing,” Deablo said last week. “I think it helped benefit me in that scenario. As far as running game, we do have to put on a little weight to take on these linemen.”

Entering his third season, it’s clear Deablo is right where he needs to be in that regard. So much so, in fact, that his physical growth caught his linebacker coach by surprise.

“He got bigger. When he walked in I was shocked to see the weight and mass he had put on,” Antonio Pierce said of Deablo.

That shock Pierce had was when Deablo showed up for OTA’s this spring. Since that time, Deablo has trimmed a bit so that he can keep the speed that he needs to cover tight ends.

“He understands his game is speed and he’s gotten better at playing linebacker and coming downhill,” Pierce continued. “What I’ve seen is a guy who’s more comfortable playing the linebacker position. He doesn’t look like a safety playing linebacker. He now looks like a linebacker. And he’ll continue to grow. I think each and every year in the league he’ll get better. He’ll see the game as a linebacker, and that will just make him a better football player.”

The Raiders will be relying heavily on Deablo as the longest tenured linebacker in this corps and providing the bulk of the coverage which will allow newly added Robert Spillane to focus more on his middle linebacker duties.

Another 3 interception day for Jimmy Garoppolo vs Raiders ‘hungry’ defense

Second straight rough day for Jimmy Garoppolo. And Raiders ‘hungry’ defense taking advantage.

Friday Jimmy Garoppolo put the ball in the hands of the defense three times according to media present. But in case you were wondering if that was a one-off, it happened again on Saturday.

There have been six different defensive recipients of Garoppolo passes over the past two days — cornerbacks Jakorian Bennett, Marcus Peters, and Amik Robertson, safeties Isaiah Pola-Mao and Tre’von Moehrig, and linebacker Robert Spillane.

And those are just the interceptions, Jimmy G reportedly had three other dropped picks with just one completion on the final drive of the day.

Some who covered Garoppolo with the 49ers recalled today of a camp practice in which he threw five straight interceptions. Then went on to quarterback the 49ers to the Super Bowl that year.

Clearly not a great day for Garoppolo. Even still, the question whenever this kind of thing happens is how much of the fault lies on the QB and how much credit should the defense get.

Camp performances against your teammates is not a time to make sweeping judgments and predictions about how the season will go. We don’t know enough about what is going on with those plays. And camp is when you take these risks and work out timing issues and tendencies.

The concern would be more if the defense was getting picked apart every day and never got their hands on the ball. So, potentially, there is good news here from a defensive standpoint. Especially with as little has been expected from this defensive unit.

“We’re hungry,” said Marcus Peters, who had one of the three picks Saturday.

“I want to get the ball, and when the ball is in the air, you’ve got to have a will and want to go get it. And I want to go get it more than everybody else. You’ve got to just make sure that infects the whole locker room and we all just do it as one unit, you feel me, and it’s going to pay off for us.”

It’s been paying off the past couple days.

They will have one more chance on Sunday to do it again before being off Monday and Tuesday.

Raiders training camp preview: New additions to 90-man roster

Raiders vets report to camp tomorrow. Here’s all the New additions to 90-man roster.

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Veterans report to Raiders training camp Tuesday. Among them will be a lot of new faces in Silver & Black. Here is the full list:

*denotes projected starter

Veteran free agents (20)

QB Jimmy Garoppolo*
QB Brian Hoyer
WR Jakobi Meyers*
WR DeAndre Carter
WR Phillip Dorsett
WR Cam Sims
WR Kristian Wilkerson
TE Austin Hooper
TE OJ Howard
G Greg Van Roten
DT John Jenkins
DE Jordan Willis
LB Robert Spillane*
CB Marcus Peters*
CB Duke Shelley*
CB David Long Jr
CB Brandon Facyson
S Marcus Epps*
S Jaquan Johnson
LS Jacob Bobenmoyer

Rookies (19)

DE Tyree Wilson, D-1, Texas Tech
TE Michael Mayer*, D-2, Notre Dame
DT Byron Young, D-3, Alabama
WR Tre Tucker, D-3, Cincinnati
CB Jakorian Bennett, D-4, Maryland
QB Aidan O’Connell, D-4, Purdue
S Christopher Smith II, D-5, Georgia
LB Amari Burney, D-6, Florida
DT Nesta Jade Silvera, D-7, Arizona State
DE David Agoha, NFL IPP, Nigeria
G McClendon Curtis, UDFA, Tennessee-Chattanooga
S Jaydon Grant, UDFA, Oregon State
CB Azizi Hearn, UDFA, UCLA
CB Jordan Perryman, UDFA, Washington
DE Adam Plant, UDFA, UNLV
TE John Samuel Shenker, UDFA, Auburn
DE George Tarlas, UDFA, Boise State
LB Drake Thomas, UDFA, N.C. State
T Dalton Wagner, UDFA, Arkansas

That’s 39 new additions which is nearly half the 90-man training camp roster.

Seven of the newcomers project as starters right away including QB Jimmy Garoppolo, WR Jakobi Meyers, TE Michael Mayer, LB Robert Spillane, CBs Marcus Peters and Duke Shelley, and S Marcus Epps. Though much could change during the course of training camp.

They will also have a new long snapper in Jacob Bobenmoyer.

Rookie DE Tyree Wilson (D-1) begins camp on the Non-football injury list while DT Byron Young (D-3) begins on the PUP list.

Ranking linebacker corps in the AFC West

Ranking linebacker corps in the AFC West

How does each team in the AFC West compare to each other at the linebacker position? Let’s rank them.

5 big questions on defense as Raiders wrap up minicamp

Minicamp is a wrap. Here’s 5 big questions facing Raiders defense

Minicamp is behind us. Next stop is training camp. Many questions face this Raiders squad they must answer over the next few weeks and months. We looked at the questions facing the offense. Now we turn to the defense.

 

 

 

 

 

Raiders not expected to receive compensatory draft picks in 2024

No comp picks for Raiders next year

For the first time in a while the Raiders had compensatory picks in this year’s draft. They had two of them, in fact — at the end of rounds five and six. But in this year’s free agency, they again are looking at a net gain in free agency, which means no compensatory picks in the 2024 draft are expected.

Here are the Raiders’ free agent losses vs gains as detailed by Overthecap.com:

Lost – 3

Jarrett Stidham
Denzel Perryman
Andrew Billings

Gains — 6

Jimmy Garoppolo
Jakobi Meyers
Marcus Epps
Robert Spillane
Brandon Facyson
Austin Hooper

The Raiders also lost Clelin Ferrell and Mack Hollins but they don’t count in the formula, and even if they did, the Raiders would still have more outgoing than incoming, so it wouldn’t really matter.

There are several factors that play into what kind of compensation a team gets from lost free agents. But the first one is simple math. If they signed more free agents than they lost, they don’t get any picks for that.

Josh McDaniels sees 3 defensive starters in Raiders free agent additions

It’s hard to see how Raiders upgraded their defense in free agency but Josh McDaniels sees 3 of them as starters

Quarterback was the top priority for the Raiders this offseason. So, they cut Derek Carr and replaced him with Jimmy Garoppolo. After that, most would agree the attention should turn to the defense which was ranked in the bottom five last season.

Despite the many lists of best available free agent defenders, the Raiders went with exactly none of them, instead going with a few less heralded free agents.

The first wave featured three defenders — linebacker Robert Spillane, cornerback Brandon Facyson, and Marcus Epps.

The Raiders see all three as starters.

“We felt like with Marcus and Robert and Brandon we might have been able to get three starters at different levels of the defense there with a corner and a linebacker and a safety,” said head coach Josh McDaniels Monday at the owners meetings in Arizona.

Of those three, only Epps had more than five starts last season and it was his only season as a full time starter in his four-year career.

As for Spillane and Facyson they have never been full time starters. Spillane is expected to come in an start at middle linebacker, replacing Denzel Perryman who the Raiders allowed to leave in free agency. While Facyson returns to Las Vegas where he started nine games for the Raiders in 2021 — more than the rest of his career combined (eight).

The biggest splashes the Raiders were on offense with Garopplo and wide receiver Jakobi Meyers. The defense, the Raiders seemed to be going for quantity over quality. And most important affordability.

“We felt like we probably needed to add a quantity of players relative to either starts or depth,” said McDaniels. “And the tricky part is going in and based on the market of certain positions, it was going to be tougher to address position A and then you can’t really do much else because of the cost of it. We tried to weigh all those options out to see what made the most sense.”

Other defensive additions included DL Jordan Willis, DT John Jenkins, CB Duke Shelley, CB David Long, and S Jaquon Johnson. The five players combined for 12 starts last season with Shelley’s five starts leading the way. So, yeah, quantity is certainly one word to describe the Raiders defensive additions.

Meanwhile they let 2022 starters Perryman, CB Rock Ya-Sin, S Duron Harmon, and DT Andrew Billings leave in free agency. So, as of this moment it’s hard to see these change in starters as an improvement.

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Raiders to sign former Steelers LB Robert Spillane to 2-year deal

Raiders turn back to the defense to add former Steelers LB Robert Spillane on 2-year deal

After watching most all of the linebackers on the free agent radar sign elsewhere, the Raiders go off the radar to get their guy.

They have signed former Steelers LB Robert Spillane to a two-year deal according to Doug Kyed.

Don’t worry, if you’re asking “Who?” don’t beat yourself up too much. You’re surely not alone.

Spillane is a former undrafted free agent out of Western Kentucky. He spent his first season in Tennessee and his last four seasons in Pittsburgh, starting a combined 16 games in his five-year career.

The 27-year-old is coming off a career year with the Steelers in 2022 in which he put up 79 combined tackles (52 solo) appearing in 16 games with five starts.

Spillane was not listed among any top free agents this offseason and didn’t even make the top 200 according to Pro Football Focus. Though, Denzel Perryman — who the Raiders have allowed to hit free agency — did. He landed at 94.

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