PHOENIX — The Las Vegas Raiders’ aggressive free agency haul has earned widespread praise, but general manager John Spytek knows the real test is still to come.
“Ultimately we had a plan and tried to attack it as aggressively as we could,” Spytek said Monday during the NFL League Meetings at the Arizona Biltmore hotel. “But the guys have got to go play, and we’ve got to make it all come to life. It’s so far beyond just signing the guys.”
Spytek, in his second season as GM, wasted no time reshaping the roster. In the first 24 hours of free agency, he signed center Tyler Linderbaum to the richest interior lineman contract in NFL history, added speedy wide receiver Jalen Nailor, and bolstered the defense with linebackers Nakobe Dean and Quay Walker, edge rusher Kwity Paye, and nickel corner Taron Johnson via trade.
“We wanted to get younger and obviously we knew we had some position groups on the roster that needed to be strengthened,” Spytek said. “And from that standpoint, I felt like (our staff) did a great job.”
Spytek credited cap specialists Tom Delaney, David Christoff, and Julia Ayres for structuring deals to maximize cap flexibility. “It’s more complicated than most people realize, sometimes even more than I’m qualified to do, so I rely on them a lot for that,” he added.
The process was complicated by the Maxx Crosby trade that was made and then rescinded by Baltimore, sending Crosby back to the Raiders while contracts were being finalized. Spytek said that didn’t alter their plans much.
Owner Mark Davis and the ownership group provided the resources to make moves, Spytek said. Assistant general manager Brian Stark and the personnel department — including Brandon Hunt, Ben Chester, Jordan Brown, and Jordon Hein — produced reports on every available player to prepare for what the organization knew was a pivotal offseason.
“They were super thorough,” Spytek said. “We had many great conversations throughout the season about how we wanted to really attack this going forward. We wanted to get younger. We wanted to target the right kind of people. So I’m just proud of the work we put in. It was great collaborative teamwork.”
The Raiders also waited on Klint Kubiak to win a Super Bowl with Seattle before hiring him as head coach, delaying the coaching staff assembly. But Spytek felt the end result didn’t suffer. “I thought we had a really great process with our scouts and the coaches together,” he said. “We felt like we were able to really feel like we did a good job in free agency making the Raiders better.”
Now Spytek turns to his favorite part of the offseason: the draft. “I like the draft way more than free agency, so it’s actually a breath of fresh air to get into the draft prep,” he said. “But you’re on to the next thing and there’s not a lot of time in between them. We got through the first wave (of free agency) and there are still some things we might do here or there to kind of bolster the roster, but all eyes are fixated toward the draft now.”
Spytek acknowledged the job never gets comfortable. “I don’t think this is a job of comfort,” he said. “Just a little more confidence, maybe. Knowing what’s coming, knowing that there’s going to be things that you wake up to and didn’t think your phone was going to ring and that was going to happen today, but you’ll be able to just take the information as it comes and deal with it. But I’ve got a great group of people around me that have had a lot of success everywhere they’ve been.”
