Silver And Black Pride
The Las Vegas Raiders can play spoiler in Week 13. The Los Angeles Chargers head into the game in a tight race for an AFC Wild Card spot, currently tied with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills, while leading the Houston Texans, Pittsburgh Steelers/Baltimore Ravens, and Houston Texans by just one game.
However, we’ll continue to focus on the Raiders’ young players for this week’s key matchups, despite Pete Carroll making that increasingly difficult…
As alluded to in the statement above, one of the recent frustrations with Carroll is that he continues to give Kyu Blu Kelly playing time over Porter. But, to the coach’s credit, the rookie has seen the field more often over the last month, recording three starts and 147 defensive snaps in Las Vegas’ last four games, per Pro Football Focus.
Porter has put up good numbers when called upon, drawing 11 targets and allowing six catches for 74 yards on the year, with five of those grabs and 65 yards coming in one game against the Jaguars, per PFF. Granted, the rookie has had a few lapses where he gets beaten and either doesn’t get thrown at or is bailed out by an errant pass.
However, Kelly has been far from a shutdown corner, to say the least, so there’s still no reason why the third-round pick shouldn’t get the lion’s share of the reps on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Johnston has become a significant factor in Los Angeles’ offense this season. He’s the offense’s fourth-leading receiver with 502 yards, but quarterback Justin Herbert has been spreading the ball around. Johnston is only 142 yards behind the team’s top wideout, Ladd McConkey.
Also, the third-year pro has been the Chargers’ top deep threat this season, leading the team with seven catches, 205 yards and three touchdowns on passes 20 or more yards past the line of scrimmage, per PFF. Additionally, he’s second to Keenan Allen in contested targets (15 to 20) and contested catches (eight to 10) while owning the higher success rate (53.3 percent to 50 percent).
Considering those numbers and the fact that Johnston is 6-foot-3, that sets up for a very intriguing matchup on the perimeter with the 6-foot-3 corner who has 4.3 speed.
Including Chinn is stretching the definition of “young players” since he turns 28 at the end of February. But the Raiders are in a situation where they should be evaluating who can be part of the organization’s long-term plan, and he’s only on a two-year contract.
Especially if the club leans into the rebuild this offseason, Chinn could be on the chopping block since his deal carries just $6.25 million of dead cap space if he’s cut and $2 million if traded, while saving about $3.4 million and $7.6 million of cap space in those respective scenarios, per Over The Cap. In other words, the veteran still has something to prove over the next six weeks.
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