How Raiders' Roster Decisions Offer Undeniable Flexibility

The Raiders recently have no shortage of pass catchers, after keeping plenty of wide recivers and tight ends on cut down day. It gives the Raiders flexibility to do many things with their roster on gameday if needed.

Raiders' Offensive Coordinator Chip Kelly explained the benefits of having so many pass catchers.

"Well, it's the same. I mean, we'll have five or six guys active on game day, just like the Patriots will have five or six guys active. So, there's nobody in this league that's going in with eight or nine receivers on game day. It's just the way the NFL roster is. So, we're going to have the same amount of receivers as everybody else. I think a couple of our receivers don't have as much experience, but there's other places like that,” Kelly said. 

“I know you look at the Patriots roster, they've got some young guys that made it at the wide receiver spot. They've got some young guys that made it at the running back spot. So, that's this league. There's such a churn on the rosters for everybody in this league, whether you're the Raiders or the Patriots or whomever. Very rarely are you sitting pat on where you are in terms of who you got."

Kelly noted that several things factor into how a team manages their personnel, including the length of the season. The season is long, and hits add up, teams must take everything into consideration when deciding on roster-related issues.

“So, that's just the NFL. So, it's what teams can groove over the 17-game season that you play and who can stay healthy. That's the other part. That's a big thing in this league, the attrition part of this league is a real big deal as you go," Kelly said.

"So, the one thing I think we feel real confident in our group is that besides Aidan [O'Connell] and Lonnie [Johnson], we've got everybody that started camp with us, that was here for the roster. We had to add Kenny [Pickett] and we had to add a guy on defense. But besides that, the guys that were here through the spring and went through all of the summer with us are the guys we're going to go to battle with, and we're excited about that."