The Raiders seem to have settled on their starting offensive tackles going into the 2025 season, but with a little more than a week of training camp in the books, the interior of the offensive line appears to be as unsettled as ever.
The assumption going into training camp was that Jackson Powers-Johnson would remain at center, where he finished the 2024 season, and the real competition would be at the guard positions.
Dylan Parham, Alex Cappa and Jordan Meredith are all starting-quality guards, and many believed those three would compete at guard.
But with Meredith now locked in a position battle with Powers-Johnson at center, it’s hard to get a feel for what the interior of the Raiders’ offensive line is going to look like in a month.
Raider Nation Radio host Q Myers discussed the team’s offensive line carousel last week and he still felt (at the time) that Powers-Johnson is ultimately going to hold on to the job at center.
“I mean, look, everything is a chance until it’s not, right? I mean, until they come out and they say, ‘Hey, this is our starting center, this is what our offensive line looks like,’ I think that there’s a chance. Now, my gut feeling tells me [Powers-Johnson] is going to be the center,” Myers said on Thursday’s Locked on Raiders Squad Show podcast.
“That’s just my gut feeling. But again, as Pete Caroll’s been preaching since day one, there’s competition at all spots. The other thing that’s interesting to me is that Adam Butler the other day said that when he views JPJ, he sees him as an all-pro guard at some point, whether that’s this year or next year.”
“So this coaching staff may look at JPJ and say, ‘Yeah, we know that you did really well at center at Oregon, but we actually have a better position for you. We think that we can maximize your talent here,’ and that’s what it’s all about. It’s not necessarily where you’re comfortable playing, it’s where that they want you to play and where they think that you are going to excel.”
For what it’s worth, it’s possible Myers may have changed his gut feeling since Saturday as it was Meredith taking first-team reps at center during the team’s intrasquad scrimmage at Allegiant Stadium.
Additionally, Meredith shared with ESPN’s Ryan McFadden that the Raiders’ coaching staff approached him during the offseason and told him to “get ready to play center.”
Ahead of Saturday’s scrimmage, Powers-Johnson spent portions of Friday’s practice as a second-string guard and the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Vinny Bonsignore believes the Raiders’ coaching staff might be trying to send him a message.
“[There are] a lot of different layers to this, but it would be hard if I was Jackson Powers-Johnson, not to say that I’m being singled out or anything like that… it would be hard if I was Jackson Powers-Johnson, not to feel like I’ve been kind of put on notice a little bit,” Bonsignore said on the Vegas Nation First and 10 podcast.
Adam Hill, who is Bonsignore’s co-host on the podcast, added that some of Powers-Johnson’s comments in the offseason could have played a role in the situation, as well.
“Also, could there potentially be something to Jackson Powers Johnson [being] very public about [being] the center now?” Hill asked on the podcast. “We talked about it yesterday. ‘I’m going to fly to Miami, I’m going to welcome Geno Smith as his new starting center. I’m going to welcome Ashton Jeanty as his new starting center.’”
“You have to earn that. Maybe that’s the message that the coaches are sending to [Powers-Johnson],” Hill continued. “You can publicly proclaim this, but you’re going to earn it on the field, and that could be part of this, too. Again, I think that there’s many possible reasons why this is happening. One of them could be it’s just a genuine, legitimate competition.”
The Raiders travel to Seattle on Thursday for their first preseason game and it will be interesting to see what the offensive line looks like to start the game.
With only three preseason games on the schedule, the window to watch players in the preseason is smaller than it used to be.
x: @raidersbeat