{"id":830430,"date":"2026-03-24T04:32:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T04:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/830430\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T04:32:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T04:32:30","slug":"what-positions-does-pro-football-focus-say-the-raiders-must-target-in-the-2026-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/830430\/","title":{"rendered":"What positions does Pro Football Focus say the Raiders must target in the 2026 Draft?"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the Las Vegas Raiders were aggressive in the first wave of free agency, they’re still a unfinished product.<\/p>\n

Top moves made this offseason included signing center Tyler Linderbaum<\/a> and linebackers Nakobe Dean<\/a> and Quay Walker<\/a>, who were college teammates at Georgia<\/a>. The Silver and Black also completed their due diligence on players in house, re-signing cornerback Eric Stokes<\/a>, edge rusher Malcolm Koonce<\/a> and defensive tackle Thomas Booker IV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However according to Pro Football Focus, improving in the trenches remains the Raiders’ biggest need with the 2026 Draft a month away. And while the Raiders re-signed Stokes and traded for Taron Johnson<\/a>, the secondary could use more depth as well.<\/p>\n

“The Raiders spent a ton of money to improve their defense in free agency. Their defensive interior now appears to be their weakest unit on that side of the ball,” PFF analyst Dalton Wasserman wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“They don’t currently employ any defensive tackle who earned at least a 55.0 PFF overall grade this past season. Cornerback should also be an area of focus, although they did retain Eric Stokes and add veteran Taron Johnson. If protecting presumed quarterback Fernando Mendoza is the goal, then the Raiders should continue to improve their offensive line. Left guard and right tackle are occupied, for now, by Jordan Meredith and DJ Glaze, respectively. Both of those players earned PFF overall grades in the low 60s in 2025, so competition could still be brought in.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Las Vegas Raiders were aggressive in the first wave of free agency, they’re still a unfinished…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2065],"tags":[7,268,269,1744,393,2455,2454,6,525],"class_list":{"0":"post-830430","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-home-centerpiece","10":"tag-home-latest-stories","11":"tag-las-vegas","12":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","13":"tag-lasvegas","14":"tag-lasvegasraiders","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-raiders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116282283985095463","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830430","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=830430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}