With the NBA Playoffs heading into a possible championship deciding game five, the NFL is in the heart of the offseason. It would seem ESPN’s Seth Walder was inspired by the NBA and its five-man starting rosters and thus decided to rank each NFL team by its five best players. Or what he is calling each team’s “core”.
For the Raiders, he lists QB Jimmy Garoppolo, RB Josh Jacobs, WR Davante Adams, LT Kolton Miller, and DE Maxx Crosby. Though not in that order.
This group he puts at 17th in the league.
Adams and Crosby were top-20 players a season ago, Miller is a good pass-blocking left tackle and Jacobs led the league in rushing in 2022. The question of Garoppolo’s true ability — and ability to stay on the field — holds this group back, but the high end of Las Vegas’ non-QB roster is impressive. In fact, receiver Jakobi Meyers, one of the most underrated players in the league, didn’t make the cut.
What’s interesting is, for all those who say Derek Carr joined a much better roster in New Orleans, the Saints’ core was ranked at 16 overall, just ahead of the Raiders. So, it would seem, at least from the top five players perspective, that may not be true.
While Walden refers to Carr as a “solid” quarterback, he also notes that the 16 ranking might “oversell” the Saints roster as past the top five players it drops off quite a bit from the core of Carr, WR Chris Olave, OT Ryan Ramczyk, CB Marshon Lattimore, and LB Demario Davis.
