The Las Vegas Raiders decided to cut ties with starting linebacker Germaine Pratt after he didn’t travel with the team for the Week 5 game against the Indianapolis Colts. It still hasn’t been revealed why exactly things fell apart, but it’s clear they couldn’t move forward.
This left a hole for the Raiders to fill at linebacker, as Pratt started the first four games of the season. Head coach Pete Carroll appears not to want to take a risk on another veteran he doesn’t know.
According to JL Sports, the Raiders have signed linebacker Jon Rhattigan straight to the active roster. Rhattigan is a player Carroll is very familiar with. He first came into the NFL as an undrafted free agent signing of the Seattle Seahawks in 2021.
He played three seasons under Carroll in Seattle. Now, Rhattigan isn’t a player who will likely take over as a starting linebacker for the Raiders. He’s never started a game in his entire career and is mostly a special teams ace. The Raiders’ special teams have been a mess this season, so they could use a player like Rhattigan to help add some strong tackling to the group.
Carroll Talks Cornerbacks
Though losing Pratt is a blow, the Raiders already had a backup in mind with Jamal Adams. The linebacker group isn’t a major cause for concern yet.
However, the secondary has been struggling. Kyu Blu Kelly has played poorly this season, and with Eric Stokes banged up, rookie Darien Porter is seeing more action. Carroll spoke about how the cornerbacks can improve.
“Yeah, just keep working with him. He’s doing so many good things, but he is getting the action. And it’s interesting, Darien [Porter] played on the other side and really didn’t see the ball very much throughout the game,” Carroll said.
“And so, there’s ways to help him coverage-wise, there’s ways to make sure that we’re just keeping him on it. It’s just a hair of a difference on him playing from the PI situation that we work really hard on. So, no, we just got to keep getting better. I mean, they’re going to get the corner sometimes, and we got to help him as much as we can.”
Raiders Defense Has to Be Better
Due to a lack of high-end personnel, it was expected that the Raiders’ defense would struggle this season. However, they are allowing 27.8 points a game. The group has shown flashes, but they were dreadful against the Colts in Week 5.
Carroll is a defensive-minded head coach, and defensive coordinator Patrick Graham has been with the team for a long time at this point. There’s no reason they should give up 40 points to Daniel Jones.
The problem facing the group is that they just don’t have that much high-end talent on defense. It feels like the Raiders need another free agent and draft class to get the group right. That said, the defense should be able to at least be average. If Graham is hoping to be a head coach next year, he needs the group to play better.
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