{"id":116107,"date":"2025-06-09T13:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T13:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/116107\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T13:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T13:10:10","slug":"raiders-jackson-powers-johnson-working-exclusively-at-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/116107\/","title":{"rendered":"Raiders’ Jackson Powers-Johnson Working Exclusively At Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite winning the 2023 Rimington Trophy, given to the best center in college football, Raiders offensive lineman and 2024 second-round pick Jackson Powers-Johnson<\/a> played more left guard than center in his rookie season. And new GM John Spytek said back in April<\/a> that free agent acquisition Alex Cappa<\/a> would compete for one of the guard spots while Powers-Johnson, Dylan Parham<\/a>, and Jordan Meredith<\/a> would vie for the other starting guard slot and the starting center gig.<\/p>\n

As our Sam Robinson noted at the time, it would be a surprise if Powers-Johnson failed to earn a first-string role in light of his draft pedigree. Considering his collegiate success as a pivot \u2013 to say nothing of his promising performance in his first professional season \u2013 it makes sense for him to take over as the full-time center.<\/p>\n

Per Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/a>, Powers-Johnson is working exclusively as a snapper this offseason, which is in keeping with previous reports on the matter<\/a>. JPJ\u2019s ability to focus on one position, coupled with an improvement in his medical status \u2013 he missed most of training camp and the first two games of the regular season due to injury in 2024 \u2013 has created optimism that he will help spark a considerable improvement on the league\u2019s worst rushing attack (Las Vegas averaged just 79.8 rushing yards per game and 3.6 yards per carry last season).<\/p>\n

\u201cI never really had a real offseason at center. I was always playing five or six different positions,\u201d Powers-Johnson said. \u201cSo being able to really hone in on one has been awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the presence of veteran center Andre James<\/a> on last year\u2019s roster, it made sense for the Raiders\u2019 prior regime to cross-train Powers-Johnson. The Oregon product started five games at left guard and then moved to center for six contests when James went down with an injury. Upon James\u2019 return, Powers-Johnson moved back to LG for the final three games of the season.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas released<\/a> James in March, clearing the way for JPJ to assume the starting center job. Although he struggled with penalties as a rookie \u2013 according to Pro Football Focus, Powers-Johnson tallied 14 infractions in his 14 starts \u2013 PFF did assign him strong grades for his work in pass protection (68.3) and in run-blocking (70.4).<\/p>\n

New offensive coordinator Chip Kelly\u2019s blocking scheme requires a high level of athleticism from its O-linemen, so Powers-Johnson has lost 15 pounds to facilitate the transition to that system. At present, it would seem that the Raiders\u2019 starting offensive front, from left to right, will be Kolton Miller<\/a>, Parham, Powers-Johnson, Cappa, and Delmar Glaze<\/a>. That group will be blocking for promising rookie RB Ashton Jeanty<\/a>, whom the Raiders selected with this year\u2019s No. 6 overall pick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite winning the 2023 Rimington Trophy, given to the best center in college football, Raiders offensive lineman and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2065],"tags":[7,10370,1744,393,2455,2454,6,525],"class_list":{"0":"post-116107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-las-vegas-raiders","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jackson-powers-johnson","10":"tag-las-vegas","11":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","12":"tag-lasvegas","13":"tag-lasvegasraiders","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-raiders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114653575868258280","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}