Silver And Black Pride
The Raiders have a ton of free agents set to hit the open market following this season, and one of the key players is 2021 3rd rounder Dylan Parham. Parham has had an up and down start to his NFL season, the 26 year old doesn’t have the biggest size at guard (6’3/290) though he has gotten himself to around 315 pounds going into 2025 which could be a massive factor for him in 2025. Parham was originally seen as a center prospect coming out of Memphis but he’s only played 219 snaps there in his NFL career. As a rookie Parham logged 789 snaps at LG, 137 at C, and 110 at RG while allowing 6 sacks and 55 pressures. The main issues for Parham came when he was playing left guard. The Raiders decided to keep Parham at LG going into 2023 where he made strides allowing just one sack and 26 pressures across over a thousand snaps. 2024 seemed that it would be the year Parham continues at one position, but Las Vegas decided to slide Parham to right guard where he did take strides overall, seeing his PFF grade jump 14 points to a 74.3 while his RBLK grade jumped up nearly 20 points to a 75.6. Parham excelled as a run blocker during his rookie campaign paving the way with nearly 5.4 ypc when lead blocking, in 2023 that number fell to 4.1 and in 2024 it bounced back up to 4.8 despite the team’s massive struggles in the running game overall. Parham did allow 5 sacks and 36 pressures in 2024 largely due to a 22 pressure and 2 sack period in weeks 12-15 (Parham did not allow more than 2 pressures in any game other than that span)
The Raiders decided once again to move Parham back to the left side headed into 2025 and in a contract year Parham has decided to take strides so far during training camp and preseason. After originally being the potential odd man out with Meredith, Powers-Johnson, Cappa, and Parham competing for three spots. Parham quickly beat out the other three and guaranteed himself the starting left guard spot almost immediately into training camp. The Raiders drafted Caleb Rogers and Charles Grant in the third round of the 2025 draft which could play a role in whether or not Parham returns in 2026. Grant has the potential to push 2024 3rd rounder DJ Glaze into guard and Rogers needs to develop at a quick pace to have any chance at starting in 2026 but there’s the possibility he does take those steps.
Looking into the 2026 free agent market, Guard seems relatively weak. Browns standouts Joel Bitonio and Wyatt Teller headline the market, both with Bitonio pushing 36 at the start of next year and Teller 33 it’s tough to see them earning more than 7.5-10M a season. Former Raiders 4th round selection John Simpson does headline the market as well and he’ll...
