Raiders' LB Elandon Roberts Embracing OTAs

The Las Vegas Raiders have had a lot of turnover this offseason. The Raiders lost a lot of key players on the defensive side of the ball in free agency.

The Silver and Black will look very different in some areas on the defensive side of the ball and it will be important to get the new players in the right places and build chemistry with defensive coordinator Patrick Graham and the rest of the players.

The linebacker position for the Raiders will look new next season. The Raiders lost both Robert Spillane and Divine Deablo this offseason as they signed elsewhere. Those two players are major losses for the Raiders defense. But the Raiders did not stay put when signing their own players in free agency.

The Silver and Black brought in veteran linebacker Elandon Roberts from the Pittsburgh Steelers. The move was made by Raiders' new head coach Pete Carroll and new general manager John Spytek. Roberts brings much-needed experience to the team, and it will need that in the middle and a green dot player that can put the defensive players in the best position to be successful as well.

Heading into the new season, the Raiders will need to find out who their linebackers will be, but Roberts is likely to be a starter on Graham's defense.

Our Hondo Carpenter and Ezekiel Trezevant talked about what they have seen so far from Roberts in the team's OTAs in a recent episode of the "Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast."

"I am going to talk about a guy that I have been told by people in Pittsburgh, he was a terrific player and a great leader," said Carpenter. "I was pleasantly surprised. I have high expectations for Elandon Roberts. High expectations. I was watching him. I stood over there when they were working against each other and watching him direct traffic was a thing of beauty, and I saw a lot of Spillane in him ... And I was impressed."

"I was impressed as an OTA practice this early, and he knew what he was doing. He was moving everyone else around."

"Student of the game and you know how I love my linebackers," said Trezevant. "When you watch him in Pittsburgh, you could already tell he knew where everybody else was supposed to be ... I think that is something you are going to notice this season. He is the ultimate team player."