The Raiders spent the offseason acting like a team that had no interest in sitting still, and Tyler Linderbaum is the clearest sign of that.
Las Vegas has been widely labeled a rebuilding club heading into the 2026 NFL season, but the front office has pushed hard to change the conversation. General manager John Spytek went after marquee free agents at multiple spots, and with a league-leading $121.7 million in cap space when the market opened, the Raiders had the flexibility to move fast on proven players.
That urgency led them to Linderbaum, who was considered the best center available when free agency began. Las Vegas made him the highest-paid center in the league with a three-year, $81 million deal that includes $60 million guaranteed.
The move fits the way the Raiders have approached the roster this offseason. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler spent the last several days talking with league executives, coaches, and scouts while putting together positional rankings, and the Raiders showed up prominently. Maxx Crosby was ranked No. 4 among pass rushers, Brock Bowers checked in as the No. 1 tight end, and Fowler also compiled a top 10 list of interior offensive linemen over the weekend that included Linderbaum.
The appeal is easy to understand. Linderbaum is elite as a run blocker, and that may be his best trait. The concern, according to several coaches Fowler spoke with, is that his pass protection can be uneven at times.
Still, the Raiders badly needed help up front. Last season, Geno Smith, Aidan O’Connell, and Kenny Pickett were sacked a combined 64 times, a number that makes the line’s lack of stability impossible to ignore. With an immobile Kirk Cousins and rookie quarterback Fernando Mendoza now in the mix, Las Vegas had every reason to make the offensive line a priority.
And that’s the bigger picture here: the Raiders aren’t just collecting names. They’re trying to build something functional.
In the playoffs and the Super Bowl, offensive line play has repeatedly been the difference between winning and losing, and without steadiness in front, an offense can’t really get where it needs to go. Linderbaum may end up being the most important free-agent addition of the entire offseason.
In Other News...
Raiders Could Be Eyeing A Shocking Veteran Trade Next
The Raiders have spent the offseason trying to reshape the roster around a new quarterback plan, pairing the No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza with Kirk Cousins as the veteran bridge and adding enough pieces in free agency to keep the depth chart fluid. Even after bringing back Eric Stokes, the front office still has a few movable parts as it continues sorting out which veterans fit the long-term picture and which ones could become trade candidates if the younger core starts to take over quickly.
Cousins is the name that keeps hovering over that conversation because his deal gives Las Vegas a big-name fallback without locking the team into a permanent answer at the position. If Mendoza pushes for the job sooner than expected, the Raiders could be forced to decide whether to keep the veteran insurance in place or use his value elsewhere, and that kind of flexibility is exactly why this roster feels like it could still change shape in a hurry. [Read more 🡒]
Raiders Already Have One Painful 2025 Roster Miss To Explain
The Raiders took a swing on a batch of undrafted free agents in 2025, hoping to uncover a few cheap roster wins the way every team does when it chases hidden depth after the draft. Instead, the class has become a reminder of how fragile those bets can be, with several of the more notable additions already gone and no longer part of the NFL picture.
Mello Dotson, Jah Joyner, Tank Booker and Jarrod Hufford all failed to stick, while other names from that group have drifted into alternative leagues or away from pro football altogether. For a team still trying to build reliable depth without spending much, the bigger concern is less about one player than the broader return on an entire class that has already thinned out so quickly. [Read more 🡒]
Raiders UDFA Struggles Point To A Bigger Problem With Spytek
The Raiders 2025 undrafted free agent class was supposed to be a low-cost way to uncover help, but the early returns have been rough. Of the highest-paid UDFAs John Spytek brought in, only tight end Carter Runyon is still on the roster, a reminder that the team did find at least one player worth keeping around. For a front office trying to build depth and find value, the hit rate has been too thin to ignore.
The bigger issue may be less about the signings themselves than about what happened after the contracts were handed out. The pattern points to a possible disconnect between Spyteks talent evaluation and the coaching staffs willingness to invest time in unproven players, with Pete Carrolls preference for veterans he already trusted looming over the process. If the Raiders are going to make undrafted players matter, they may need a better alignment between who gets identified and who actually gets a real shot. [Read more 🡒]