Change isn’t always a good thing. Take the Raiders’ interior defensive line for example.
Last offseason, the Raiders overhauled the interior defensive line, which there was no question needed in an influx of talent, particularly in terms of interior pass rush.
They went for broke in free agency, stockpiling defensive tackles, all of whom had the potential to be solid additions or better.
They let previous free-agent bust Maliek Collins walk along with Chris Smith, and cut former fifth-round pick Maurice Hurst.
Then they re-signed Johnathan Hankins and Kendal Vickers and took fliers on free agents Quinton Jefferson, Solomon Thomas, Darius Philon, and Michael Dickerson.
The change-over was an overwhelming success. Perhaps even more so than the team had envisioned when they made all the additions. Only Dickerson failed to make the team, while the rotation of Hankins, Jefferson, Philon, and Thomas proved to be a formidable one. With Jefferson standing out as the best of the bunch.
One potential issue? All four of them were on one-year deals, which means come the next offseason, they would be once again headed for free agency.
What seemed like a situation of ‘why mess with a good thing?’ ended up with Jefferson and Thomas signing elsewhere. Hankins, surprisingly was not scooped up, while Philon awaits recovery from a late-season injury.
Instead of making re-signing any of these guys a priority, the team went after a host of underwhelming free agent defensive tackles. The one player of the bunch who has any significant starting experience is Bilal Nichols and his tape is littered with rough plays, with many believing he was mostly shielded by an overall strong Bears defense.
That being said, Nichols’s signing is similar to the fliers the team took last season that worked out, so he could be worth a shot.
Other than Nichols, there wasn’t much to be crazy optimistic about in terms of new additions. Certainly, none that screamed upgrade over their previous group. They were Andrew Billings, Vernon Butler, and Kyle Peko. That group had a combined total of four starts last season.
If you’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt, Billings and Butler had a lot more starts in the couple of seasons prior to last season, so they do have *some* starting experience. But you gotta wonder why they lost those jobs and were nowhere to be found on any lists of best free agents on the market.
For all those question marks, the group looks decidedly better today with the re-signing of Johnathan Hankins.
Hankins has started nearly every game the past four seasons for the Raiders. He was a consistent lane-clogging, run-stopper up the middle for them over that time. And now he returns to play for Patrick Graham under who was his DL coach in 2016 with the Giants. His return slots him right back into that starting lineup alongside Nichols.
This is no small thing. Now instead of still having a big question mark at one starting DT spot, the Raiders have two starters and three newcomers vying for two spots in a rotation. If any of those three come up big, that’s a bonus. If they don’t, the Raiders will simply keep one or two worthy of a spot in the rotation.
That’s a situation they can feel a lot better about.
