NFL owners, coaches, general managers, media, and more all gathered in Palm Beach, Florida over the weekend to discuss their teams, rules proposals, and the future of the league. The Raiders were well represented at the meetings, as both head coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler were both in attendance. Both spoke with the media about the Raiders’ offseason to this point.
Of course, the team’s blockbuster trade for All-Pro WR Davante Adams was at the top of everyone’s mind.
“Dave (Ziegler) talks to all the teams,” McDaniels said. “You just want to make sure you have a relationship with everybody. If there’s anything like (acquiring Adams) that’s out there, you just try to see if there’s opportunities to improve your team,”
“When it became apparent that (the Packers) were going to think about doing something like that, then you have to start doing your work, diving into the process of researching the player, the player’s fit, and anything that you can to try to figure out if it’s something that would make your team better.”
“With Davante, it just felt like this is the kind of player you would consider doing this for.”
General manager Dave Ziegler commented on the addition of Chandler Jones, who has spent the last six seasons of his career with the Arizona Cardinals and signed a three-year, $51 million contract with the Raiders with $32 million guaranteed.
“Chandler, was he a priority? Yeah, he’s one of the best pass rushers available. Those are premium positions. I think you need to do your work on those premium positions… He’s one of the players that we were highly interested in, but we just didn’t know how that one was going to go.”
The additions of Adams and Jones, as well as various other additions to the team thus far into the offseason, has put the Raiders in the mix in an extremely strong AFC.
Ziegler also took a moment to discuss the ongoing contract negotiations with QB Derek Carr.
“(Contract negotiations) are really personal. They’re personal things. They’re personal to the player, they’re personal to their families, they’re personal for the organization… The way that I’m going to handle those things here and going forward is keeping those in house. We’ll keep hammering away, keep working together.”
The NFL Owners Meetings conclude Wednesday. In less than one month, Las Vegas will be hosting the 2022 NFL Draft on April 28-30.
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