Getty New Las Vegas Raiders OLB Jordan Jenkins.
The Las Vegas Raiders took a blow earlier in training camp when Kyler Fackrell was placed on the Injured Reserve. He was supposed to be a solid third pass rusher behind Maxx Crosby and Chandler Jones. He’s now done for the season and may never play for the team.
It’s not easy to find good pass rushers this late in the offseason but the Raiders may have found a solid replacement for Fackrell. According to Aaron Wilson of Pro Football Network, Las Vegas has signed Jordan Jenkins.
Jordan Jenkins signing with the Las Vegas Raiders, per a league source
Jenkins was originally a third-round pick of the New York Jets in 2016. He spent five seasons with the team where he accumulated 22.5 sacks in 62 starts. His best seasons were in 2018 and 2019 when he combined for 15.0 sacks over the two seasons. Jenkins was with the Houston Texans last season and was only able to reach 2.5 sacks in 11 games. If he can return to 2018 and 2019 form, he could be a very good replacement for Fackrell in the defense.
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Josh McDaniels Talks Signing
Jenkins is a player that the Raiders coaching staff is quite familiar with. Head coach Josh McDaniels and many of his assistants come from the New England Patriots. Jenkins used to play against the Patriots twice a season when he was with the Jets.
McDaniels had a chance to speak on the Jenkins signing.
“I played against Jordan a lot, going back to the AFC East,” McDaniels said Thursday. “Physical guy and played in a tough conference in college football and came in and does a good job of some of the things we ask our guys to do on the edge.”
Jenkins will no long be McDaniels’ enemy as they are now teammates. The coach knows what the pass rusher can do so this is an interesting signing. That said, McDaniels still needs to see Jenkins up close before he can talk too much about him as a player.
“We’ll see how he does here. We haven’t had any opportunity to work with him yet, but has demonstrated the ability to set the edge on defense and do some things in the pass rush. Great guy and looking forward to having the opportunity to start with him today.”
Raiders Get Reinforcements
The Raiders have been missing several key players at the start of training camp due to injury but they are now starting to get more players back. According to The Athletic’s Tashan Reed, Darren Waller, Trayvon Mullen, Rock Ya-Sin, Johnathan Hankins, Bilal Nichols and Divine Deablo recently returned to practice.
My #Raiders practice observations: Darren Waller is back — plus Trayvon Mullen, plus Johnathan Hankins, plus Bilal Nichols, plus Divine Deablo — Thayer Munford gets hurt, receiver competition and more:
That’s six possible starters the Raiders are getting back. Mullen, Hankins and Nichols have yet to have a practice in training camp yet so that should be a big boost for the team. Mullen needed to get back to practice as he was losing ground in the starting cornerback race. The same goes for Ya-Sin who was expected to be one of the starters. Luckily, there’s still plenty of time for the cornerbacks to gain the trust of the coaching staff.
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Raiders Land Ex-Jets Pass Rusher With 25.0 Career Sacks