The Raiders were an abject failure along the offensive line in 2025, but there is some reason for optimism in the offensive trenches going into the 2026 season.
The addition of Tyler Linderbaum is a big deal, and the California Post’s Vinny Bonsignore added this week that one of the most beneficial changes to this year’s offensive line will be the absence of last year’s coaching staff.
“There’s a lot of belief and feeling that a lot of what happened last year on the offensive line, I’m not going to say it was all coaching, but… this is up until recently, just a couple of days ago, about how putting the tape on and watching the offensive line last year, and befuddled, pissed off, amazed at how dysfunctional it was,” Bonsignore said on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate.
“Not from necessarily a talent standpoint, of course when Forsythe is in there, as opposed to Kolton Miller, there’s a big drop off. We will agree on that. He did what he could, Stone did. He was just a limited football player. There was a talent issue there. But by and large, when your top guys were in there and it wasn’t deemed a talent issue, it was deemed that guys were just not even on the same page.”
Aside from the upgrades to the coaching staff, Bonsignore said one of the young offensive linemen getting a lot of love right now is former third round pick D.J. Glaze.
“You had D.J. Glaze, who there’s a lot of admiration for in the building, doing his thing, and it might look like he got beat, but it wasn’t because he got beat, it was because other guys weren’t doing their job the way they should have, because they didn’t even look like they knew what they were supposed to be doing, and at some point you have to put that on coaching,” Bonsignore said.
“There’s a real feeling inside the building where the coaching is so at such a higher level that that’s going to be less of a problem. There’s going to be a lot of cohesion, a lot of chemistry, a lot of players that are working together in unison on that offensive line. It’s going to make all the difference in the world.”
If Glaze doesn’t end up being the answer at right tackle, the Raiders could turn to one of last year’s third round picks in Charles Grant or this year’s third round pick Trey Zuhn III.
x: @raidersbeat