Jon Gruden can’t handle not having a thumper at linebacker.
As of Friday, he didn’t necessarily have one. But a low stakes trade on Saturday with the Dolphins brought 24 year-old Raekwon McMillan to Las Vegas where he figures to have good chance to make the Raiders initial 53-man roster… or even win the starting job.
As pointed out by the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Vinny Bonsignore, the Raiders didn’t give up draft assets (they gave a 4th-round pick and received McMillan and a 5th-round pick) to pick up a player for two weeks. Obviously, Nick Kwiatkoski and Cory Littleton were signed to play just about every down, but there are more questions than answers at linebacker for the Raiders beyond those two.
“The sense is [McMillan] is the leading candidate to win the third linebacker spot in the base defense, although veteran Nicholas Morrow will still have a say in that outcome,” Bonsignore reported for the Review-Journal on Saturday.
Based on that it sounds like McMillan went from the roster bubble in Miami to the likely starter in Las Vegas in just a matter of hours. Not a bad day for the former second-round pick (2017) from Ohio State.
twitter: @raidersbeat
I like the latest trade. We needed more depth at LB.
Smart move by the Raiders.
Littleton kwiatkoski and McMillian not to bad.
They need McMillan to start to have a runstopping linebacker in on early downs third and short..4th and short..Goal line..and Javin White fill in with the second team alongside Morrow and Muse. If I needed a spark I would use 24 at linebacker and Heath and Harris at Second string safety..