Oakland Raiders’ Free Agency Nightmare Continues as Thomas Goes to Jaguars
By Kevin Saito
Reggie McKenzie is swinging for the fences this offseason. Unfortunately for the Oakland Raiders, he’s been hitting slow dribblers back to the mound more often than he’s been making solid contact.
The start to free agency – oh sorry, the start to the “legal tampering” period the NFL allows before the free agency window officially opens a bit later today – has been nothing short of a nightmare for McKenzie and the Raiders.
Okay sure, the Raiders have made one move and are reportedly set to sign center Rodney Hudson to a five year, $44.5 million dollar deal.
It’s a bit of an overpayment for a center, but the 25 year old Hudson has been ranked as one of the best centers in the league – and given his performance over the last couple of seasons, seems to be a pretty sizable upgrade over Stefen Wisniewski.
But other than Hudson, McKenzie and the Raiders have nothing else to show for their efforts. They whiffed on Randall Cobb – despite reportedly throwing an insane amount of cash at him.
They whiffed on Ndamukong Suh – who required an astronomically insane amount of cash to get him to sign on the dotted line in the first place.
They whiffed on Jeremy Maclin – though, that’s coming from Bill Williamson of ESPN, and we don’t really know how hard they actually pursued the former Eagle star.
And now McKenzie and the Raiders have whiffed on another one of their big free agent targets. Former Denver tight end Julius Thomas is reportedly set to sign with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
After a hard push from #Seahawks (and #Raiders and #Broncos) TE Julius Thomas plans to sign with the #Jaguars tomorrow. Huge get.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 10, 2015
Though exact details are not yet known, Thomas’ deal with the Jaguars is believed to be worth around $9 million dollars a season. Given the fact that McKenzie was set to offer Cobb more than $10 million dollars a season – and didn’t get him – it seemed likely that they’d be willing to pony up the cash for a player who’s scored 24 touchdowns over the past two seasons, and would provide QB Derek Carr a solid, physical, and reliable red zone target.
It’s not yet known what sort of offer was on the table for Thomas, or whether there was enough guaranteed money in the deal – a sticking point in his negotiations with the Broncos – but it clearly wasn’t enough to interest the two time Pro Bowl tight end.
Though obviously, there is a lot going on behind the scenes that fans are not privy to, and McKenzie may yet unveil some perhaps unexpected, big signings – Da’Norris Searcy? Terrance Knighton maybe? – when the free agency window officially opens, the start to the free agent feeding frenzy is off to an ominously bad start.
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Armed with the second most cash to spend in the NFL, and with a number of good, young, foundational pieces to build around, thus far McKenzie is having an alarming amount of trouble getting anybody to take his money.
On the plus side of the ledger though, is the fact that rather than use last season’s blueprint – which seemed to be spend big on players well past the prime of their careers and had very little to offer in football terms – McKenzie is seemingly being more aggressive in pursuing impact players.
Seeming to hold true to his word of making a run at veterans who can step in and contribute right now, McKenzie has been taking some big cuts at some of the game’s top players.
Unfortunately, for the most part, he’s coming away empty handed.
It’s not time to press the panic button just yet. There are still a fair number of impact veterans in the prime of their careers still out there. And there will be a number more as teams continue shedding contracts to get themselves in a better position under the cap.
McKenzie is going to have plenty of opportunities to wave that fat stack of money he’s holding and draw the attention of some real players who can step in and contribute on day one.
It’s not time for fans of the Silver and Black to freak out just yet. When the free agency window opens tomorrow, perhaps McKenzie will have a few tricks up his sleeve.
After all, during this “legal tampering” period, nothing can be made official, and the NFL has prohibited clubs from releasing details of agreements between player agents and teams. So if the Raiders do happen to have some big fish on the line, we might not know about it until the start of free agency.
But the early trend of players walking away from the pile of cash McKenzie is sitting on is beginning to raise a few red flags. Raider fans have to hope that McKenzie can rebound from a few rough at-bats and hit a walk off homer when the free agency window opens.