Oakland Raiders: Should the team sign Derrick Johnson?
The Oakland Raiders have shown interest in former Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, Derrick Johnson. Johnson is a player with question marks surrounding his future, should the team look to sign him?
*EDIT: So about an hour after this went up the Raiders officially signed Johnson. Regardless, the points made still stand.*
The Oakland Raiders recently brought in veteran middle linebacker, Derrick Johnson, in for a visit, as reported by Adam Schefter. This comes as not surprise to anyone, as the team has had a glaring hole at middle linebacker, in which they chose not to address through the draft, ever since Navarro Bowman hit free agency.
While there is still a chance the team brings Bowman back for this upcoming season, it has yet to happen– opening the door for the team to bring in another free agent at the position.
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With that being said, is Johnson the right player for the job? Well he isn’t the greatest fit, but you can’t ask for much better at this stage of the year, and he’s defiantly an upgrade over who the team would have at the position without him.
As of now, the only sure thing to start at linebacker is newly signed, Tahir Whitehead. If no middle linebacker is brought in, it is possible we see Whitehead play that position. In an ideal world Whitehead would be the team’s strongside linebacker, which could be the case if the team brings in Derrick Johnson.
This would give the team two solid starters at linebacker, which is really all you need in today’s nickel heavy NFL. Even so, the linebacking core will still be rather thin. This shouldn’t be a huge problem though, as the depth the team now has at defensive line and cornerback may be able to make up for most of the ailments caused by the linebacking deficiency of the team.
So it is obvious the team needs to sign a middle linebacker, but what about Derrick Johnson makes him a good fit on the team? It starts with his experience. Johnson is one of the better linebackers of this generation, playing twelve years in the league and making four pro bowl appearances.
Aside from the year he missed with injury in 2014, he has been rather consistent over the years. Last season saw a massive drop off in his production, going from 116 and 90 total tackles in 2015 and 2016 respectively, to just 71 in 2017.
This downturn in productivity is likely a result of the season ending achilles tear Johnson suffered from in week 13 of 2016. This is an i credibly difficult injury to come back from, especially at the age of 35.
The glimmer of hope the team can have for next season if they sign Johnson, is that he’ll be another year removed from this injury. Since it occurred so late in the 2016 season, there wasn’t a whole lot of recovery time. With an extra year of time to return to close to where he was pre-injury, there is a good chance we could see a much better version of Johnson than we saw in 2017.
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This is a risk worth taking by the team, as there is not much to lose. He won’t be expensive to sign and there has been no real interest by any other teams. At the worst he can be a valuable veteran to have in the locker room, at the best he can be an above average starter at a position of need for the team.