Oakland Raiders: 5 Biggest questions entering 2017 training camp
3. Where’s the Green Dot?
The Mike linebacker is the captain of the defense and the man who strikes fear into the heart of the opposing offense. Lacking a presence since the days of Greg Biekert, the Raiders played Ben Heeney and rookie Cory James last season before signing and settling on Perry Riley Jr.
James had a strong initial showing and put together a few games before he struggled off of the field. James is a converted outside linebacker and is raw, but capable of manning the position. He would benefit greatly from a change to a 3-4 defensive front and condensing his responsibilities, allowing him to play faster.
Rookie Marquel Lee is a throwback linebacker, who’s quick and capable of playing sideline-to-sideline while being big and strong enough at 6-4 and 250 pounds to take on and shed blocks. Another solid tackler and quite an efficient pass rusher, Lee was a captain at Wake Forest and no stranger to running the team. Ideally, we would see more of a 3-4 look with both of these young men on the field complimenting each other.
Jack Del Rio has said outright, he isn’t sure the solution to the Mike linebacker conundrum is currently on the roster. That was before they recently signed Brady Shelton. Shelton participated in rookie minicamp but wasn’t signed until Wednesday, according to Ian Rapaport of NFL Media:
It's mid-July, but pre-camp work goes on: #Raiders will sign LB Brady Sheldon of Ferris St, source said. Speedster was a rookie camp tryout.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) July 12, 2017
The Raiders are going to have to take a long hard look at what they have before they have to consider whether they are or aren’t ready to concede to some of Perry Riley’s contract demands. Your guess is as good as mine as to what happens here, so let’s step back and enjoy the battle.