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One of the Las Vegas Raiders‘ best offseason additions came just before the season started. After dealing with some injuries at linebacker in training camp, the team pulled off a trade with the Carolina Panthers for Denzel Perryman. He was quickly inserted as the team’s starting middle linebacker and has put together a really strong campaign.
He’s third in the NFL in total tackles with 133 and leads the league in solo tackles with 85. Perryman was always a solid player with the Los Angeles Chargers but couldn’t earn a starting job consistently due to injury issues. He’s made a name for himself in Las Vegas and his teammates love him. Defensive end Maxx Crosby took to Twitter to proclaim that there is no linebacker in the NFL more slept on than Perryman.
Staying humble, Perryman responded by throwing praise back at Crosby.
Perryman and Crosby have been a big reason why the Raiders defense has seen improvement this season. While it’s been a rough season for the team overall, they’ve had some real bright spots on defense.
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Perryman Receiving Many Pro Bowl Votes
This is Perryman’s seventh year in the NFL but he has yet to make a Pro Bowl. That could change this year. According to the most recent tally of Pro Bowl votes, Perryman leads all AFC insider linebackers with about 55,000 votes.
Fan voting only makes up one-third of the Pro Bowl selection process but this is a good sign that Perryman will be making his first Pro Bowl. He’s having a career year and should continue to put up good numbers as long as he stays healthy. Unfortunately, that might not be the case.
Divine Deablo Impressed After Injuries to LBs
Perryman was forced to leave Sunday’s game against the Washington Football team due to injury. He missed Wednesday’s practice which could mean that he’s going to miss this week’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs. If so, the Raiders may rely on rookie linebacker Divine Deablo more. For the first time this season, he saw significant defensive snaps against Washington. He had 11 combined tackles and played well outside of allowing one touchdown catch.
“We think Divine’s been coming on in practice all the time and getting a lot more reps certainly at the WILL linebacker. He had a chance to go in there and play for us for a little bit, and we had some injuries. We thought he did a good job, and he kept his role on (special) teams as well,” interim head coach Rich Bisaccia said of Deablo.
The Raiders linebacker corps has been solid for most of the year so that wasn’t much opportunity for Deablo to play. With Perryman, Corry Littleton and Nick Kwiatkoski all getting banged up against Washington, Deablo should see his role increase this week. Considering he played well, the Raiders should be looking forward to seeing what he can do with added pressure.
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