Silver & Black Pridecast Ep 24: Making sense of Raiders cuts, 53-man roster decisions and how it played out on Hard Knocks finale

Saturday was the official deadline for teams to cut their rosters down from 90 to 53 players. The Raiders did that, but a few things on that initial roster just didn’t seem quite right. Then on Sunday they signed QB DeShone Kizer and cut Josh Mauro. Then things really didn’t seem right.

They had four quarterbacks, four linebackers, and ten offensive linemen. Those aren’t your typical position numbers. That’s one or two too many QB’s, one or two too many offensive linemen and one or two too few linebackers.

The day after, they evened it out a little. It turned out Nathan Peterman had injured his throwing elbow in the preseason finale — which Hard Knocks captured with their cameras — and the young QB was placed on injured reserve with an option to return midway through the season. Rookie corner Isaiah Johnson was also sent to IR and with those two roster spots now open, they brought back Mauro and re-signed linebacker and special teams captain Kyle Wilber.

That brought the QB numbers down one and the linebacker numbers up one, while returning Mauro who has been pegged as a starter this season.

There was still the issue of ten offensive linemen, which is harder to figure. The injury to Gabe Jackson isn’t going to keep him out long enough to place him on IR, but he will still need to be replaced as the starter until he returns. That makes sense to keep an extra guy for that. It doesn’t really explain why they kept both reserve tackles David Sharpe and Brandon Parker.

Tyler and I discuss that decision as well as the questions at each position for the Raiders in our latest Silver & Black Pridecast.