Michael Mayer was drafted by the Raiders in the second round of the 2023 draft, but his career has taken a lot of turns in the last two years.
The head coach and GM that drafted Mayer are no longer with the Raiders, and the addition of All-Pro tight end Brock Bowers only stacked the deck against Mayer getting on the field in 2024 even more. Mayer also dealt with a person matter last year and was at the center of trade rumors in February.
“The Raiders have had discussions with teams who have interest in tight end Michael Mayer, according to league sources,” The Athletic’s Vic Tafur and Tashan Reed reported from the NFL Combine in February.
Ultimately, Mayer wasn’t traded, and now it seems like new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly expects Mayer to have a legitimate role in the offense.
Maybe part of the reason Kelly is enthusiastic about Mayer is because the third-year tight end has been raising a few eyebrows at practice in the last few weeks.
“Mayer has shown up in tremendous shape and has been a standout at OTAs so far,” Las Vegas Review-Journal insider Vinny Bonsignore reported on Tuesday.
“It helps that he has a new quarterback in Geno Smith and offensive coordinator in Chip Kelly,” Bonsignore continued. “Mayer’s overall numbers will likely always be affected by Bowers, who had a record-breaking rookie season after being selected 13th overall in last year’s draft. But there’s no reason the Raiders can’t have two productive tight ends.”
With Bowers clearly ahead of Mayer on the depth chart, it will be interesting to see how the Raiders choose to deploy their two tight ends.
From 2010 to 2012, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots proved how effective an offense can be with two tight ends on the field, so Kelly shouldn’t have to look far for ways to deploy Bowers and Mayer.
As for the situation that derailed most of the 2024 season for Mayer, not a lot has been made public about the matter, but Raider Nation Radio host Q Myers offered the most insigtful details at the time.
“In the Michael Mayer situation… it’s nothing to do with him wanting to trade or him in playing time or not getting enough targets. It truly is a personal situation. And from what my understanding is, what I’ve been told is that they didn’t know what was going on with Big Mike,” Myers said on the Locked on Raiders podcast in October of last year.
“His family had to tell the team about a situation that apparently has occurred in his life before that has put him in a position where he’s in,” Myers continued. “And now that they know what it is, they feel like that they can get to a resolution of it. So, I don’t know exactly what that means. That’s the way that it was worded to me.”
Every indication, as of now, is that Mayer has responded well to whatever he was dealing with in 2024, and it sounds like he’s having the best offseason of his short career. It’s only the first week of June, but it’s definitely a positive sign that Mayer’s third NFL season is off to a good start.
x: @raidersbeat
The Raiders have always had great tight ends he can give the Raiders a great offense