Raiders’ Silberman fills a need at tackle
The man who started the Raiders’ preseason opener at right tackle has appeared in one regular-season game in three NFL seasons, bounced among four organizations the past two years, and last played offensive tackle regularly in college in 2015.
Ian Silberman was not a likely pick to be part of the Raiders’ starting offensive line at this point in August. But with no clear starter at right tackle, and Breno Giacomini and third-round pick Brandon Parker dealing with injuries, Silberman has assumed the first-team role in training camp.
“I give him credit,” head coach Jon Gruden said Monday. “He’s played a lot of positions for us. We needed somebody to come in and step up. And he did that.”
If this sounds familiar, Silberman was also in Raiders camp last year and made an impression — by learning to play center. Silberman had not played the position before the Raiders’ preseason opener. With Rodney Hudson resting and Jon Feliciano injured, Silberman started at center against Arizona and played the entire game.
Though that was a temporary situation, this time Silberman, 25, appears to have a real shot at the right-tackle job. And that, he said, makes this a key juncture in his NFL career.
“It’s very important,” Silberman said Monday. “You get to a point where you get tired of being on the practice squad or you get tired of not dressing for games and not being able to play. You get to the point where you really want to get out there.”
A sixth-round pick by the 49ers in 2015, Silberman debuted in Week 1 and did not play the rest of his rookie season. He was waived the following summer and had brief stints on the Patriots’ and Raiders’ practice squads. Last year, Silberman believed he’d done enough in camp to earn a spot on Oakland’s 53-man roster, but he was included in the Raiders’ Sept. 2 cuts.
“I was able to go to a couple of different places,” Silberman said, “but it did hurt.”
Compounding things, Silberman got sick in the final game of the preseason and lost 20 pounds over three days, he said. He was claimed by the Colts, waived, re-signed to the Colts’ practice squad, released and signed to the practice squad in Cleveland. In December, with Hudson dealing with a kidney stone, the Raiders brought back Silberman for two games in which he didn’t play.
“Last year was probably the most frustrating year of my career so far,” Silberman said. “But at the same time, you’ve got to deal with some of that stuff. It’s either going to make you hungry or it’s going to make you crumble.”
In the Raiders’ 16-10 win over the Lions on Friday, Silberman played the first two series with the starters and re-entered the game on one later drive, logging 19 total snaps.
For all their confidence in an interior offensive line of Hudson and guards Kelechi Osemele and Gabe Jackson, the Raiders have questions at both tackle positions. Pro Bowl left tackle Donald Penn remains on the physically unable to perform list in his return from Lisfranc foot surgery. The Raiders cut last year’s starting right tackle, Marshall Newhouse, in March.
After the Raiders selected offensive tackles Kolton Miller (first round) and Parker (third) with two of their first three picks in April, Gruden said it reflected a need to protect quarterback Derek Carr from a deep group of opposing pass rushers in the AFC West. Yet as things stand, the Raiders’ first-team tackles, Miller and Silberman, have one game of shared NFL experience.
Unlike in previous years, Silberman is being allowed to focus on improving at one position. If that should change, Gruden has said, the Raiders value Silberman’s versatility.
“You can only keep so many linemen, and you can only have so many available on game day,” Gruden said. “He’s going to have to play emergency tight end, he’s going to have to play emergency guard and tackle. And right now, he’s answering the bell in those areas.”