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NFL media has Raiders firmly as top ten defensive line

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Raiders defensive line getting some respect from NFL.com which ranks them as their ninth best in the league.

Are you tired of hearing how good the 2016 Raiders can be yet? No? Well, good, because there’s more. For instance Gregg Rosenthal has been working his way down his list of which teams he thinks have the league’s best defensive lines.

Rosenthal sees the Raiders as having the NFL’s ninth best defensive line. That’s also the highest rank in the AFC West. He currently has reached the Kansas City Chiefs at number 12 (and Arrowhead Pride does NOT agree with that ranking).

Those teams topping the list ahead of the Raiders are:

  1. LA Rams
  2. New York Jets
  3. Cincinnati Bengals
  4. New York Giants
  5. Carolina Panthers
  6. Philadelphia Eagles
  7. Minnesota Vikings
  8. Seattle Seahawks

Without delving into these teams and whether they’re worthy of their rankings, I can’t disagree with the Raiders ranking here.

Dan Williams had a great 2015 season stopping the run, Khalil Mack was an All Pro at both defensive end and linebacker, Mario Edwards Jr took over for Justin Tuck and looked fantastic before being lost for the final few games of the season.

Rosenthal made this ranking without even mentioning the unsung performance Denico Autry had late last season. Add Justin Ellis and Jihad Ward rotating in for depth and that’s a very stout unit.