Oakland Raiders: 3 players to target ahead of the trade deadline

3. Preston Brown, LB

The Raiders organization has wholly ignored the linebacker position for years and it isn’t surprising to see the team in need of one at this point in the season. But at least part of their issues has been a result of poor luck this year.

Defensive captain and offseason acquisition Vontaze Burfict was hit with a season-long suspension earlier in the month effectively ending his season. And before that, Oakland saw young linebacker Marquel Lee land on the injured reserve.

And following the release of veteran Brandon Marshall at the conclusion of the preseason, that left the Raiders with essentially two starting-caliber linebackers. While Tahir Whitehead and Nicholas Morrow are fine, the depth behind them is nearly non-existent.

Justin Phillips, Dakota Allen, and Kyle Wilber represent the remainder of the team’s linebacker depth chart making for a whos-who of the Raiders special teams unit.

The Raiders have been stuck with five defensive backs on the field at basically all times because of this, and one player they could target to fix this is Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Preston Brown.

Brown has started 76 of 78 games over his six-year career and even managed a league-leading 144 tackles back in 2017 with the Buffalo Bills. But given the state of Cincinnati’s team, the Bengals will be looking to sell some of the veterans on their roster.

The soon-to-be-27-year-old is a cheap, experienced option who the Raiders could acquire for a late-round draft pick making it worth the investment. Brown’s addition would allow the team to play in their base 4-3 defense while giving them extra insurance in case the injury bug strikes again.

Brown isn’t a star, but he’d be a solid veteran addition to a very thin and inexperienced Raiders linebacker depth chart.