Considering he was taking training camp reps with the third string, it wasn’t necessarily a surprise that the Raiders traded Jakorian Bennett this week, but there have been some questions to why the team would trade one of the better young cornerbacks on the roster.
Bennett played as well as any cornerback on the team in 2024, but according to Raider Nation Radio host Q Myers, the third-year defensive back was struggling with aspects of Pete Carroll’s defensive scheme.
“The thing about [Jakorian Bennett] is he wasn’t trending in the right direction as far as the depth chart. You want to see a guy, if he starts out with the twos, you want to see him trend up towards the ones,” Myers said on the Locked on Raiders Squad Show podcast. “Instead, he started out with the twos and he was running with the threes. So, he was trending in the wrong direction.”
“He’s not the guy that fits necessarily the prototypical Pete Carroll defensive back… and then on top of that, just the scheme and the technique, he wasn’t getting,” Myers continued. “He wasn’t looking that comfortable with it. I think that’s the best way to word it. You could just tell that he was, you know, thinking. And if you’re thinking for a second or two, someone’s going to go by you. It doesn’t matter how fast you are, if you’re thinking, someone’s going to pass you by. And so, that was the problem with him.”
As for the player the Raiders got from Eagles in the Bennett trade, it sounds like Thomas Booker IV didn’t have a path to playing time in Philadelphia, but has some upside.
Booker was a fifth-round pick by the Houston Texans in 2022 and played only 166 defensive snaps for the Eagles a year ago. In those snaps, Booker achieved the second-lowest Pro Football Focus grade on the Philadelphia roster in 2024.
If Booker becomes an impact player in 2025, credit Raiders GM John Spytek for uncovering a gem because right now Booker is a relative unknown – even among Eagles fans.
One player in the league that is high on Booker, though, is one of his former teammates in Philadelphia.
Podcast host Graphk Raider shared a message from a friend who did a commercial with All Pro offensive tackle Lane Johnson, who played with Booker in Philadelphia.
According to the message, Johnson believes Booker will eventually be a Pro Bowl caliber player.
“I just produced a USAA spot in New Jersey, a commercial with Lane Johnson. Lane says this dude Thomas Booker will be a Pro Bowler in a couple of years, just an FYI. He went on to say, he said ‘Dude is a beast, has all the tools, and if he keeps working and coached up right… he will be a Pro Bowler in the next few seasons.”
x: @raidersbeat
Try to spin as best you can but it was another terrible value transaction.