Anyone who paid close attention to the Raiders’ roster coming into this offseason would tell you their top needs were wide receiver, right tackle, cornerback, and defensive tackle.
You could take it a bit farther, and add guard, center, and linebacker as well.
Most of those positions were addressed this free agency, but one position that got a somewhat surprising amount of early attention was that of running back.
Even with starting running backs Josh Jacobs and Kenyan Drake returning along with former undrafted free agent Trey Ragas and fullback Sutton Smith, new head coach Josh McDaniels still prioritized the position, restructuring Drake’s deal to keep him, and adding Brandon Bolden, Ameer Abdullah, and fullback Jakob Johnson all within the first two days of free agency, making for a pretty crowded running back room.
“That’s a position that’s hard to stay healthy, it just is,” McDaniels said of running back. “They touch the ball more than everybody but the quarterback, and they get hit more than anybody.
“We have a couple of guys that are rehabbing now and so to have depth in that room is important because if you don’t have quality depth in the running back room today in the NFL, a lot of times you’re going to run into some issues and some injuries you know, and then you get caught in trying to make a quick transaction during the middle of the season.
“So, we’ve always tried to have as much depth in that room as we can. I think it’s a position that it’s really critical to have good players, but it’s also really good to have good depth that you can plug in there and they can serve a lot of roles.”
Seven running backs is a lot to be carrying at this time of the year when there are no practices happening. Usually, one or two of the backs added in the offseason come either from the draft or undrafted free agency. We’re still a month off from that.
Drake was lost in week 12 of last season, so you figure when McDaniels talks about backs who are rehabbing, he’s speaking of him. Jacobs fought through an ankle injury much of last season, but he was still running well even into the playoff game, so you’d figure by the time the team takes the field for any actual practice, he should be fine.
It’s clear McDaniels is taking the approach that you can’t have enough running backs, figuring by the time training camp is over, one or more of them will go down with an injury. And it’s getting priority or positions that are either less likely to suffer injuries or are more easily replaceable on short notice.