This season the Raiders have almost an entirely new coaching staff. It started with Josh McDaniels as head coach and then he reached out and brought in a bunch of coaches, most of whom he had worked within the past.
Those connections are important to McDaniels, as they are for the coordinators and assistants he hired to join him with the Raiders. And those connections figure to not just be limited to coaches, but former players as well.
The free-agent negotiating period opens Monday and you can expect some big names to agree to terms pretty early in the process. Those agreements become all the easier when the coaches are familiar with the player with whom they are dealing with because they’ve worked with them.
In that vein, I have collected what I deem to be the top ten free agents with connections to the Raiders’ new staff.
Not including Trent Brown, cuz, no.