Will new regime want to retain several in-house free agents?
With plenty of salary-cap room, Las Vegas Raiders general manager Tom Telesco was expected to extend the contract of multiple pending free agents, but he never did.
Now, these players will be evaluated by a new group of coaches front-office people. So, they may not feel the same was as the Telesco and his staff did about them and there’s no guarantee these players will fit the new system.
Yes, the new regime will be flush with salary-cap room (in a weak class), so they will have money to spend and they could and likely will look to keep some of the free agents. But there will be change and, as usual, free agents will be brought who have history with the incoming staff.
Most of the Raiders’ key free agents are on the defensive side of the ball. They include linebacker Robert Spillane and Divine Deablo, safeties Tre’von Moehrig and Marcus Epps, pass-rusher Malcolm Koonce, cornerback Nate Hobbs and defensive tackles John Jenkins and Adam Butler.
Some of these players may opt to go to free agent and perhaps reunite with members of the Raiders’ outgoing staff.
Surely, some of these players (the Raiders’ deepest free-agent class in years) will garner interest from Las Vegas, but Telesco’s decision to to re-sign them earlier and his firing gives this class more uncertainty.
