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Free agent Raiders new regime let walk last year thriving in new role
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- Free agent Raiders new regime let walk last year thriving in new role
Free agent Raiders new regime let walk last year thriving in new role
Last year the Raiders brought in an entirely new front office, led by GM John Spytek. With the housecleaning atop the organization came a housecleaning on the roster as well.
The team had a lot of players up for free agency and summarily let nearly all of them leave. This especially affected the defense which saw six starters leave, many of whom were scooped up as priority free agents by other teams.
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Not all of them were rousing successes with their new franchises. Nate Hobbs, for instance, was released this offseason, just one year into his multi-year deal with the Packers . Others, such as LB Robert Spillane and DE K'Lavon Chaisson, helped lead the Patriots defense to the Super Bowl.
But perhaps the biggest of the free agents who left Las Vegas turned out to be safety Tre'von Moehrig.
The former second round pick signed on with the Panthers , who went about expanding his role and Moehrig has been thriving in his new role.
NFL media's Bucky Brooks noted recently that the NFL is deploying the 'Star" position a lot more these days. Which is a hybrid defender who moves around the middle of the defense from the line of scrimmage all the way to the deep safety spot. And he named Moehrig as one of the best in the NFL in that role last season.
The 6-2, 202-pound box-area bandit emerged as one of the league's most dynamic multi-level defenders last season, his first with the Panthers after spending four years with the Raiders. Moehrig's versatility, instincts, awareness and physicality were showcased in a scheme that allowed him to line up all over the field. He took snaps on the defensive line (102 as an on-ball linebacker) and at inside linebacker (276), strong safety (205), free safety (160) and slot cornerback (322). As an ultra-aggressive defender with a knack for making plays in the backfield on blitzes or run-throughs at the line of scrimmage, Moehrig led all defensive backs with 51 stops (tackle that results in a successful play for the defense), tied for second with three sacks and ranked fifth with 14 QB pressures last season, per Next Gen Stats.
Sometimes free agent signings are in the best interest of all parties involved. Those parties being the player, the team they are signing with, and the team opting not to re-sign them.
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Obviously Moehrig and the Panthers benefited from his signing. For the Raiders part, they were looking at a rebuild, which is why they let so many players leave. They may not have envisioned Moehrig in that role, but they did sign Jeremy Chinn for those purposes, so they aren't missing the boat on the NFL 'Star' trend. They also drafted two safeties out of Arizona who played all over the interior of the secondary, so that they have plenty of options in order to be versatile.
This article originally appeared on Raiders Wire: Free agent Raiders new regime let walk last year thriving in new role
