New Raiders WR Coming off Career Year in Danger of Getting Cut, per Analyst

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The Las Vegas Raiders have a lot of wide receivers. There are currently 11 on the roster but only kept five on the active roster at the start of last season. It’s difficult to envision a scenario where the team keeps more than six once training camp ends.

That means five to six players are going to get cut. Davante Adams, Jakobi Meyers, Hunter Renfrow and rookie third-round pick Tre Tucker aren’t going to get let go so there are only one to two spots that aren’t already spoken for. Alex Ballentine of Bleacher Report believes that DeAndre Carter could be one of the wide receivers on the roster bubble who gets forced out:

It’s safe to say that Renfrow, Meyers and Davante Adams will take up the first three slots. That leaves Carter, Keelan Cole Sr., Phillip Dorsett, Tre Tucker and Cam Sims, among others, to compete for two roster spots.

Carter’s experience as a kick and punt returner could give him an edge, but his overlap in skills with Renfrow and Meyers makes him redundant as a receiver.

He could be the odd man out.


Carter Coming off of Career Year

Carter was one of the more interesting signing the Raiders made this offseason. The 30-year-old wide receiver just had the best season of his career with the Los Angeles Chargers. He had 46 catches for 538 yards, which were both career highs. Even at 30, he could be an ascending player.

He may have also simply been the beneficiary of playing with Justin Herbert. Also, Keenan Allen missed much of the year due to injury. Carter is definitely a candidate to be on the roster bubble once roster cut-down deadlines near. It’s very important for him to have a strong training camp. He could be a good fourth or fifth option at wide receiver for the Raiders but he has to beat out some good veterans to make it happen. What works against him is that he has a similar skillset to that of Tucker and the team would almost certainly favor the rookie third-round pick over the 30-year-old journeyman.


Raiders Should Have Top-10 Offense

Last season was a major disappointment for the Raiders but the offense wasn’t bad. The team averaged 23.2 points a game, which was 12th-best in the NFL. The offense looked out of sync for much of the season so they got those numbers in large part due to superior talent.

Renfrow and tight end Darren Waller were injured for much of the year, which led to many of the struggles. Waller was traded but has been replaced with exciting rookie Michael Mayer. A healthy Mayer should be at least a slight upgrade over an injured Waller. Renfrow could still get traded but he’s healthy now and should be ready to bounce back in 2023. Jimmy Garoppolo doesn’t have the arm talent of Derek Carr but he’s a good fit with head coach Josh McDaniels and is a much better red-zone quarterback. The Raiders offensive line looks essentially the same so it shouldn’t be any worse than last year. At the very least, the team should be able to at least match its offensive output from last season.

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