On July 30th, Raiders head coach Jon Gruden held a conference call on which he was feeling pretty good about his roster and getting camp started. Mostly he was happy no players had opted out of the 2020 season, saying “I have not heard of any of our players doing that, so we’re pleased to announce it.”
Well, four days later, the Raiders had their first players opt out of the season over COVID-19 concerns. The two players are defensive end Jeremiah Valoaga and defensive back D.J. Killings.
Luckily for the Raiders purposes, neither Valoaga nor Killings are projected starters this season. Several other NFL teams have had key starters say ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to the 2020 season.
Thus far they are the only two Raiders players to opt out, but there are still a few days left, so who knows if that will change. The deadline for players to opt-out is 1 p.m. Pacific Time (4 p.m. ET) this Thursday, August 6th.
With Killings and Valoaga opting out, the Raiders needed to move eight other players to get down to the 80 players. They did so by waiving seven players and trading defensive tackle P.J. Hall to the Vikings for a conditional seventh-round selection in the 2021 draft.
The seven players are defensive back Jordan Brown, tight end Paul Butler, placekicker Dominic Eberle, center Erik Magnuson, long snapper Liam McCullough, wide receiver Anthony Ratliff-Williams, and linebacker Marquel Lee (failed physical).
[vertical-gallery id=70859]
[lawrence-newsletter]