Moves leave Key without a mentor
Defensive end hoped to learn from Mack, Irvin
ALAMEDA >> When the Raiders drafted Arden Key in the third round in April, he thought he’d spend the early stages of his career learning from Khalil
Mack and Bruce Irvin.
Instead, he never shared a field with
Mack and now Irvin is gone eight games into
Key’s NFL career. The rookie edge rusher out of LSU has gone from No. 3 to No. 1 only halfway through the season after Mack’s trade to the Bears and Irvin’s recent release, and the Raiders need Key and others to step up if their pass rush hopes to be anything more than non-existent these last eight games.
“We had a conversation. He said, ‘Keep going.’ He said, ‘It’s your time now. It’s going to be your team, next year, a couple of years from now.
Think of it as your team and your D-line. Take over,’” Key said of Irvin’s parting words. “And he gave me a few tips that he wish he would have done better. He gave me a few tips to try and follow ... The main thing I took from him is not thinking so much ... He said, ‘Play off instinct. Whatever happens on the field, you go off instinct and you go 100 miles per hour.’”
The Raiders’ defensive end group now consists of Key, veteran Frostee Rucker, second-year defensive end Fadol Brown and two new signees in Jacquies Smith and Kony Ealy. Oakland ranks dead last in the league in sacks (seven) and quarterback pressures (59). Without Mack and now Irvin, reaching the quarterback has become exponentially harder than it looked in late August, and the Raiders (1-7) will take any sliver of help anywhere they can get it as they try to dig up any last bit of pride left to capture in an otherwise lost season.
“Take the D-line to the next level,” Key said of what he wants to accomplish in the last eight games. “With
the help of Frostee and the older guys, take the D-line to the next level. Whatever happens with that, that’s what happens.”
Of the Raiders’ seven sacks through eight games, Irvin had three. The scraps left include defensive tackle Maurice Hurst’s two, Key’s one and defensive tackle Clinton McDonald’s one. Hurst, the leader on the team in sacks, is tied for 100th in the NFL in that category. The Raiders don’t have a single sack in their last two games, both multiple-touchdown losses to the Colts and 49ers.
On Monday, the Raiders signed Smith, who has 13.5 sacks since entering the league in 2014, and Ealy, who has 15 in 62 career games played over four seasons. “I’m going to be the best Jacquies Smith. That’s my goal, to go out there and produce, and do it fast, and do it quickly, finish up this back half of the season showing everybody what I can do,” Smith said Monday. Ealy wasn’t in Alameda as of Monday afternoon.
At this point, Jon Gruden and Co. might as well keep rotating the pieces until they find a puzzle that fits together, if that day ever comes in 2018.
“Each week it feels like something new we’ve got
to get over,” Rucker said. “A new adverse situation, but that’s part of pro sports, it’s part of life. Guys have to adapt, new guys have to step up. It’s always about the next man up, and right now the key to our whole season has been next man up.”
Irvin’s departure didn’t
come as a shock — his playing time gradually diminished over the last several weeks and he played only nine defensive snaps against the 49ers — despite Gruden implying last Friday the team was looking forward to extracting more from Irvin in the second half of the season. As we’ve learned, Gruden might do the opposite of what he says (see: trading Mack and Cooper), and he decided to part ways with a defensive captain the Raiders were paying $8 million this season, far too much for what he left on the field.
Irvin was Key’s mentor more than anything, especially after Mack never showed up in Alameda, and now Key is left with Rucker and a cast of unprovens on a Raiders defensive front that can’t get much worse than it already is. Maybe, just maybe, they surprise some people with little to play for and virtually no expectations outside that locker room. Respect is about all they have left to capture as the worst unit on the NFL’s worst team.
“Not losing hope, with the brighter times that are coming down the road,” Hurst said. “Just keep working, keep grinding, keep trying to make this thing turn around.”
• David Sharpe, the Raiders’ 2017 fourth-round pick, is back with the team for offensive line depth after the Raiders claimed him off waivers from the Texans. Sharpe started two games for the Raiders at left tackle last season after Donald Penn injured his foot, but the Raiders waived him after initially including him on the 53-man roster in early September.
“It’s not something I expected. I was happy for the call. I’m always thankful for it,” Sharpe said. “They need help and I’d love to help ‘em. This is always home for me.”
Kolton Miller, the Raiders’ rookie first-rounder and starting left tackle, didn’t practice Monday after leaving Thursday’s game early after re-injuring his right knee. Left guard Kelechi Osemele practiced, but he too re-injured his right knee against the 49ers. Brandon Parker and Ian Silberman shared time at right tackle, so clearly the Raiders’ offensive line is in flux and will take any bodies available.
• Safety Obi Melifonwu, a second-round pick by the Raiders who was waived by Oakland on Oct. 23, has been signed by the New England Patriots, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Melifonwu, who played collegiately for Connecticut and went No. 56 to the Raiders in the 2017 draft, played five games last season, one as a starter. He was placed on injured reserve last December with a hip injury. He was waived on Aug. 23 to clear a roster spot for veteran Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, and then was restored to IR.