Oakland Raiders: 2016 Offseason In House To Do List
By Kevin Saito
The thing about Taylor Mays is that his stats don’t jump off the sheet. He doesn’t come close to leading the team in tackles, sacks, interceptions, or – well – anything. He was a castoff who bounced around the league a bit but could never manage to stick. He even bounced around the Raiders, being cut and signed multiple times. But once the team found a niche for him, his value to this Raiders defense went well beyond the stat sheet.
For nearly the first half of the season, the Raiders struggled against opposing tight ends. And to call it struggling is to put it incredibly kindly. To be more to the point, the Raiders flat out sucked at defending the opposing tight ends. It led HC Jack Del Rio to make the crack about the opposing tight ends using “cloaking devices” to make themselves invisible.
Enter Mays.
Norton and Del Rio had Mays help out with their little problem and once they did and weren’t getting burned week in and week out by opposing tight ends, the defense settled in and started to find a groove. Obviously, there was more to Oakland’s defensive turnaround than just Mays, but his five passes defensed and overall pretty solid play, certainly helped out.
While the Raiders certainly shouldn’t break the bank for Mays, they should at least make a run at retaining him, especially given the fact that their safety position is in a bit of flux given Charles Woodson‘s retirement. He knows the system, he played well in it, and made some key contributions.
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