Raiders tender three restricted free agents including Nicholas Morrow

The Las Vegas Raiders have officially tendered three of their four restricted free agents including linebacker Nicholas Morrow.

The Las Vegas Raiders have been incredibly active this free-agency period making a number of notable signings. But on Wednesday, the team did a little bit of housekeeping tendering three of their four restricted free agents.

The Athletic’s Vic Tafur reported that the Raiders have tendered linebacker Nicholas Morrow, quarterback Nathan Peterman, and offensive tackle David Sharpe‘s contracts meaning that they will all be returning next season.

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Both Peterman and Sharpe were given original-round tenders which means that their salaries will be $2.13 million in 2020. Essentially, if any team wanted to extend an offer sheet to any tendered RFA and sign him, they would have to surrender a draft pick from the tendered round in return.

In Peterman’s case, the former Buffalo Bills signal-caller was originally a fifth-round pick. So if a team wanted to sign Peterman, they would extend an offer sheet and if he agreed, that team would forfeit a fifth-round pick to the Raiders.

Sharpe was originally a fourth-round pick so the same is true for him except his new team would surrender a fourth-round selection.

Teams have three tender options to place on a player. An original-round tender, a second-round tender, or a first-round tender. The only player to received a first-round tender this offseason was New Orleans Saints quarterback/special-teamer Taysom Hill.

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As for the Raiders, they used one of the few second-round tenders filed on linebacker Nicholas Morrow.

This may come as a surprise to many given that Morrow likely won’t be a starter next season. The former undrafted rookie has spent the past three seasons as a fringe starter and key special-teamer starting eight games in 2019 while playing a whopping 48 percent of special-teams snaps.

A second-round tender carries a fixed salary of $3.26 million — a sizable bump from the near-league-minimum salary Morrow had last season.

In reality, this was likely the Raiders’ only option if they wanted to keep him.

Since Morrow originally went undrafted, the team would have received no compensation if another organization signed him to an offer sheet. That left the Raiders with two choices.

They could have either signed him to an original-round tender and likely been forced to match an offer sheet from another team — for probably a higher salary. Or they could have placed a second-round tender on him and all but eliminated that possibility.

They chose the latter.

There is virtually a zero percent chance that any team will sign Morrow to an offer sheet with a second-round pick on the line meaning that the Greenville product should be on the team next season.

The same could probably be said for Peterman and Sharpe who should each be fighting for a roster spot come the summer — or whenever training camp actually starts.

The Raiders likely aren’t done shopping, but they made sure to do a little clean-up on Wednesday before resuming their busy offseason.