The Raiders drafted two offensive linemen on day two of the draft a year ago, but for reasons that haven’t been fully explained, Caleb Rogers and Charles Grant didn’t see the field a lot last year.
When they did play, Grant and Rogers both showed potential, and based on comments this week from Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter, Rogers is in good position to make a run at a starting job this year.
“In a perfect world, Caleb Rogers would be a starter,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast.
“No one is going to replace Spencer Burford right now. Spencer is everything that we thought he was when he came in, and we thought he was really good, and so did the Raiders. But Caleb Rogers is putting a push on, and I’m going to tell you, at some point in 2026, I fully anticipate him being a starter. So that’s going to mean JPJ is going to be in a competition with Burford, because I think Caleb is going to be in there… This staff is very, very high on Caleb Rogers.”
Last year, Carpenter said he thought the person responsible for not playing Rogers last year should take responsibility for the decision.
“I thought Caleb Rogers in his second start was good,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast in December of last year. “There are questions there and I want to say this. The person responsible for Caleb Rogers not playing earlier this year should take accountability for that.”
Based on what has been reported since those comments, it sounds like Carpenter was most likely referring to Chip Kelly as the person responsible for Rogers’ playing time last year, but Pete Carroll was the head coach in 2025 and ultimately the decision comes back to him (especially considering Carroll’s son was the offensive line coach).
The other important detail to Carpenter’s more recent comments is the notion that Jackson Powers-Johnson might not be shoo-in as a starter this year.
There is a lot of time between now and the start of the season, but with so much invested in the offensive line over the last two years, the coaching staff in Las Vegas is going to have plenty of options along the offensive line if everyone stays healthy.
According to Rogers himself, he needed a lot of work from a technical standpoint in his first NFL season
From the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Vinny Bonsignore in December, the coaching staff last year might have been justified in their patience with Rogers.
“I will say this, Caleb told me when I spoke to him about this, he said he was a mess when it came to his hand and footwork coming out of, in training camp, coming out of training camp. And he said that he and the staff worked really hard on that. So, you could also make the argument that he may not have been ready and worked his way into being ready,” Bonsignore said on the Vegas Nation First and 10 podcast last year.
“I know that you can do that on the fly, but it sounded like there was some real development time that was needed, and maybe that set him up to be what we’re seeing now.”
Looking ahead, it’s going to interesting to see how the coaching staff juggles the offensive line in training camp and preseason.
It sounds like Klint Kubiak is fond of Spencer Burford from their time together in San Francisco, but the career ceiling on Rogers and some of the other young linemen on the roster could end up being too much to ignore
x: @raidersbeat
