Oakland Raiders Preview: Breaking down the 2019 cornerbacks

2. The Free Agents

Nevin Lawson was signed to a one-year deal after playing five years for the Detroit Lions. At 5-foot-9, Lawson is a slot cornerback and gave up 707 yards along with six touchdowns in 2019.

Those are pretty bad numbers.

According to Mansur Shaheen of Pride of Detroit, Lawson was starting on the outside last year as he explains that Lawson “…played primarily as an outside corner in Detroit, it is likely that Lawson will move to his more natural position as a slot corner in Oakland.”

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Maybe that is part of the reason for the bad numbers if you want to look at things positively, but the Lions would have re-signed him if they thought he would play better at his more natural position. Plus he did play a large percentage of snaps in the slot and still didn’t produce, not recording an interception in his entire five-year career.

Regardless, Lawson was only signed to a one year deal in a year we invested a lot in the cornerback position and is probably there just to provide depth despite being a four-year starter.

The Raiders also signed former Los Angeles Rams free safety Lamarcus Joyner to a four-year deal this offseason and he’s slated to be the starting nickel cornerback despite playing last year mostly at safety. The fact that Joyner will be playing a lot of nickel was a motivating factor in him choosing to come to Oakland, as he wanted to move to the East Coast to be closer to home saying the following.

"“It’s just something that I’ve been doing since literally high school, college. Going from nickel to safety, nickel to safety, it’s what keeps me going. It keeps the season new and refreshing for me. … It motivates me to just enjoy the game much more.”"

According to PFF, Joyner was the second-highest rated safety in 2017, a year he played a lot of nickel. Last year he mostly played base free safety under defensive coordinator Wade Phillips and his grade dropped him back down to being the 28th rated safety.

Joyner was still good last year at safety though, not allowing a single pass over 19 yards in 1,100 snaps. Safeties are supposed to be the last line of defense and he didn’t allow any throws over the top.

This is why I question whether he should start at the nickel even if he is better at it as the Raiders don’t really have a proven rangy coverage safety like Joyner can be — we just hope players like Johnathan Abram and Karl Joseph can grow into that role.

Regardless, he most likely is going to be more of a corner for the Raiders by all reports and accounts.