Raiders roster: Top heavy cornerback room is less than ideal

Jack Jones, Nate Hobbs provide two premier talent at position group but depth is lacking

In Jack Jones and Nate Hobbs, the Las Vegas Raiders have quality starters at outside and nickel cornerback, respectively.

Both offer the requisite aggressiveness in coverage and against the run along with the swagger that makes them throwbacks to the storied Silver & Black defensive backs.

Yet, outside of those two, the Raiders cornerback room is riddled with question marks. Youngsters Jakorian Bennett and Decamarion Richardson do offer plenty of athleticism and upside, but are relative unknowns as a second-year defender and rookie, respectively. Veteran Darnay Holmes, a free agent signing after he was released by the New York Giants, rounds out the group.

That’s five cornerbacks on the active roster as Holmes basically replaces the recently-released veteran Brandon Facyson (injury settlement). Sam Webb and M.J. Devonshire (a seventh-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft) are on the practice squad and give Las Vegas a total of seven in the cornerback room.

It’s a very top heavy group where depth is lacking. However, as the season wears on and Bennett and Richardson develop and progress, perhaps that changes. The pressure is on Bennett this coming season to showcase he’s a different player from last season. A fourth round pick from the 2023 draft, Bennett initially won a starting job with an impressive offseason but lost his spot along with confidence. The 24-year-old — who has the speed to make Raiders of old proud — has regained the confidence and is slated to be the starter opposite of Jones.

Facyson wasn’t a world beater by any means, however, the veteran has size (6-foot-2 and 197 pounds) and starting experience (17 starts in 75 career games) to have been in the fight for the other outside corner spot opposite Jones in Patrick Graham’s defense. And one can’t forget Raiders general manager Tom Telesco knows all about Facyson as he inked the corner as an undrafted free agent when the personnel man was the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers GM.

“Yeah, I mean, Brandon has shown he’s been a starting level corner in this league. So, he’s just had a tough run of luck the last couple weeks. But when healthy, he’s been a really good player, so we’ll kind of see how it plays out from there,” Telesco noted after he cut the Raiders roster down to the mandated 53-man roster limit.

And we saw how it played out.

Facyson initially made the roster, was sent to injured reserve, and was let go with an injury settlement after Holmes was officially signed. The 5-foot-10 and 195-pound veteran who is in his fifth year is banking on a change of scenery and familiarity with both Graham and head coach Antonio Pierce resets his career. A part time player who was demoted to special teams work in his final year in New York, the 2020 fourth-round pick provides versatility to the Raiders defense, according to Pierce.

“Yeah, position flex. I mean, that’s key for us, right?,” Pierce noted. “Really, the only guy we got that can go inside-outside or outside-inside is Nate Hobbs. So, when you can add another player like that, Isaiah Pola-Mao does it as well from a safety position. You see him a little bit at the nickel position, you’ve seen that obviously in the preseason. So, just the more flexibility you can get, the better it is for our team. It makes us a better overall unit.”

Speaking of flexibility, Telesco did reach into his old stomping grounds to claim a safety that can play cornerback in Thomas Harper. The undrafted rookie was waived by the Chargers with the team hoping to get in on the practice squad and the Raiders pounced adding him to the 5-foot-10 and 195-pound 23 year old to the 53-man roster.

“Yeah, I like his play style. What I saw on film was a guy with a burst, aggressiveness, kind of controlling the back end as a young player,” Pierce said of Harper. “I watched him in college. You just saw a guy each and every week get better in the preseason. And again, whatever you can do to keep building depth in every room, especially in the secondary for us, is critical. But he does have a skill set to play both safety and nickel position.”

Bennett, Richardson, Holmes and potentially Harper buoy the Raiders cornerback room with Jones and Hobbs as the leaders. Richardson, a fourth-round pick from this past draft offers ideal size (6-foot-2 and 188 pounds) and speed. A better tackler than takeaway artist at this point of his career, it’ll be interesting to see how much playing time on defense the Mississippi State product carves out.

But for all the intrigue and potential, there’s plenty of questions.

For better or worse, those answers will come quickly for the Raiders and Raider Nation.