REPORT: Which Second-Year Las Vegas Raider is Facing the Most Pressure Entering This Season?

One of the biggest offseasons for growth for young players in the National Football League is between their first and second seasons. The Las Vegas Raiders, who still hope last year’s draft class will be foundational for the organization, hope some of those players will become critical pieces of the team’s plans moving forward. 

It could be debated which of their second-year players could use the most improvement this offseason. However, between defensive linemen Tyree Wilson and Byron Young and pass catchers Michael Mayer and Tre Tucker, it is undebatable that one player, in particular, is expected to show the most growth. 

Sam Monson of Pro Football Focus was thinking on a much larger scale than just the Raiders as a team when he recently listed which second-year players face the most pressure this season.

Monson believes second-year Raiders defensive lineman Tyree Wilson faces not only the most pressure of any second-year player on the Raiders’ roster, but Monson believes few second-year players in the entire league face as much pressure to succeed this season as Wilson.

“Wilson’s draft position was a big question mark until the Raiders made him the No. 7 overall pick, and the most concerning thing about his rookie year was actually that he saw quite a lot of playing time,” Monson said. 

Monson noted the lack of statistics for Wilson last season. However, it must be noted that once Wilson was moved to the interior defensive line, he became productive in ways that do not always show up on the stat sheet. The defense improved significantly over the final nine games of last season after Wilson was moved inside.

“He was so anonymous within games that the tendency is to assume he didn’t feature much, but he played 493 total snaps, rushed the passer 308 times, and notched just 24 total pressures," Monson said. "He posted just a 50.4 PFF pass-rushing grade and won only 6.4% of his pass-rush snaps.

"By any measure, this was an extremely poor rookie season for a player who was always more of an athletic project than some other pass-rushers in the draft. Wilson now needs to take a big step forward in the offseason to avoid going down as yet another Raiders first-round miss."

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