One of the Raiders’ pricier veterans may be staring at a tough roster battle, and Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter said Tuesday that a high-priced player could be in real danger of missing the final cut.
“I think there are some veterans who could be in a lot of trouble and one of them in particular has a very high price tag,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast.
Carpenter did not identify the player, but Malcolm Koonce fits the profile. The 28-year-old edge rusher has managed just one quarterback pressure in 15 pass rush attempts, and the film, as the source material puts it, hasn’t given him any cover.
The money complicates everything. Koonce has more than $10 million of his contract fully guaranteed, which means the Raiders would save essentially nothing against the cap by moving on from him through a cut or trade.
Still, he’s one of only five players on the roster set to make more than $10 million this year, and the Raiders are not cutting Maxx Crosby, Tyler Linderbaum, Kolton Miller or Fernando Mendoza.
That leaves Koonce in a vulnerable spot, especially with Cian Slone and Patrick Johnson pushing hard for roster spots.
It would be a significant miss for the Raiders to cut a player they just signed to a deal with nearly $11 million in guaranteed money. But unless Koonce has shown something in training camp that he hasn’t shown in games, the team may have to decide whether to move on and lean into the younger options instead.
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