The Raiders made a few regrettable decisions in GM John Spytek’s first offseason with the team, but the decision to extend defensive coordinator Patrick Graham was one of his best.
According to veteran linebacker Devin White, Graham and head coach Pete Carroll have been trying to find the best way to blend their schemes and it has been a work in progress.
But on Thursday night against the Denver Broncos, it was clear that Graham’s defense is still the strength of the team.
With that in mind, Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter made an interesting statement on Graham and his future with the Raiders. Listening to Carpenter, it doesn’t sound like Graham is a lock to be back in 2026.
“I’m going to withhold discussion on [Patrick Graham] until after the year. I just think there are some things I could say that would not be beneficial to [Graham] or the organization. And out of respect for both, I will address that in great detail in the off season,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast.
“It would be a colossal screw up by the Raiders if they lost PG,” Carpenter continued. “If I was PG, I don’t know that I would want to stay. I’ll just leave it there.”
Not much is known about the length of Graham’s contract with the Raiders, but we did get a hint to what his salary looked like prior to the season.
Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer reported in February that Graham is making just a little under $4 million this year with the Raiders.
“They [gave] Patrick Graham a raise. He was already making over $3 million. They [got] him closer to $4 million,” Breer said on Sports Illustrated’s Breer Report not long after Graham extended his deal with the Raiders.
Interestingly, Breer then pivoted to the relationships Tom Brady has at nearly every level of the personnel and coaching ranks in Las Vegas.
“One thing that all these guys have in common is they all have the respect of [Tom Brady],” Breer said of the new coaches and personnel hires in the Raiders building. “Pete Carroll obviously competed in Super Bowls against Tom Brady. Chip Kelly actually helped the Patriots modernize their offense in 2011 and 2012. [He] worked with some of their coaches to incorporate more tempo in what they were doing. Brady, because of that, is well aware of what Chip Kelly is capable of. Patrick Graham… was in New England with Brady.”
The name that stands in the nine-month-old report is Chip Kelly and his history with Brady.
It’s an especially interesting detail considering some have suggested in recent weeks that Kelly might be Brady’s “guy” in the building.
Kelly’s relationship with Brady is a storyline that has gotten legs in recent months, and ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio brought it up again last week.
“I just wonder how the coaching staff will change after this season. There has been some talk, and I don’t know what’s accurate or not, Tom Brady is not going to text me and tell me. And I don’t have the keys to the inner sanctum. But if Chip Kelly is a Brady guy, and I don’t know, I don’t know how this all plays out after the season,” Florio said on PFT Live.
“Pete Carroll was one and done 31 years ago with the Jets,” Florio continued. “And we see one and done like when one and done happens, we’re like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe it.’ And then I pull up our story with all the one and done’s from the past 10 years [and] it’s like, ‘Hell, it happens a lot.’”
“I just don’t know where this is going for the Raiders, and I wonder what Tom Brady thinks…”
x: @raidersbeat
Yes the Tom Brady connection is paying off dividends.
Meanwhile Seattle & New England ditched these 2 clowns how are they doing?
Instead of shutting down the government, the House of Representatives should have shut down, then put down Hondo Carpenter.
There’s Hondo with his patented “I know something juicy because I’m such an insider, but rather than enlighten my customers, I’m going to keep it to myself until at least the offseason, maybe forever, because it might not be good for the team” trick. Dude, that’s not journalism. Mark Davis doesn’t pay you. At least JT the Brick gets paid by the Raiders to carry water. Second of all, I don’t know of anyone who has burned more by his “sources in the building” than Hondo. Remember such recent hits as the whole “nobody in the building is concerned about Christian Wilkins” reporting from the offseason. Your source burned you, dude. I hope you’re still not using that one. I know he writes for the fan side of Sports Illustrated, but do most fans really crave overly optimistic coverage that puts the interests of the Raiders and certain members of the organization over the truth? I’d hope not.
As for Graham, I don’t see why he would come back to essentially be co-Defensive Coordinator, if that’s what is going on with the Raiders defense. I know not everyone agrees with me, but I suspect if Graham left, or got fired, he would have other DC offers within a week. The Raiders lack of talent has hurt him, but I believe he’s gotten good faith HC consideration for some of the teams that have interviewed him previously. I really do think he’s a very smart football coach, and if he had a roster good enough to run wild with, I think we’d get a chance to see a lot more of it. We’ve seen glimpses with more talented rosters in the past couple of years, but I mean, I’d love to see him have a couple of years with top 10 defense in terms of player talent.
I don’t think Elandon Roberts and Devin White would be playing if it was Graham’s call, given their deficiencies in coverage (it’s OK, they’re not that good against the run either). I think he prefers more versatile guys like Deablo and Moehrig, while hardly All Pros, would allow the Raiders to be a lot more diverse in their gameplanning week-to-week. I suspect a lot of this soft Cover 3 zone is a combination of Carroll’s influence and Graham’s lack of faith in the back 7. I think he believes (probably correctly) that between the coverage limitations of this group, the lack of overall pass rush…. These guys would get absolutely toasted by playing more man, press, sending additional rushers. So they’re stuck playing these kind of boring, but safe defenses, and hoping offenses make enough mistakes or commit untimely turnovers. Mix in a few stands that keep scoring drives to 3 points instead of 7, and hope the offense gives them a bit of help by scoring some points and limiting the amount of time the defense is on the field (they have generally not helped at all). I think they believe that has to be the blueprint to be competitive.
So he’s biding his time, trying to work with Carroll and this bum *** group, and hoping the defense finishes with a decent enough ranking to give him the best options possible going forward. I don’t blame him, but frankly, I’d rather see Pete go than Graham.
Anyway, as you can probably tell, I like Graham quite a bit. I think he’s the best Raiders coach at his specific job since Gruden’s offense around 2020-2021 (But, you know, without the disastrous personnel decisions [Frank Costanza Voice: How could you take Damon Arnette and Alex Leatherwood with mid first round picks?! You’ve ruined this once proud organization by taking a box safety because you liked how hard he hit despite safety rules making those plays detrimental and a DC who played almost exclusively 2-High!!!], his pathetic and regressive bigoted old man personal beliefs, and the sense to not expose those beliefs by sending emails full of them on a work email account to a fellow cretin who was sending the same offensive stuff right back). Dude STILL could coach up a pretty good offense, though, despite his stupidity. I think if he’d ever gotten that true, reliable outside WR (Ruggs may have turned into that guy, but Lamb definitively WAS that guy) to pair with Waller, Renfrow and Jacobs, he might have put up top 5 offenses with a good, but hardly great QB like Carr, and a middling offensive line.
I’m digressing way off track now. Enjoy your weekends and hey, at least having to go back to work will likely not be the worst part of a Monday for us this week, so we have that going for us! And remember, it’s not the league that hates the Raiders anymore, it’s God.