AFC Notes: Chargers, J.C. Jackson, Broncos, Raiders

Chargers

Chargers HC Brandon Staley said they don’t have a timeline on CB J.C. Jackson‘s recovery from a knee injury in October. 

“[We have] no timeline,” Staley said, via ChargersWire. “He’s at the facility, just kind of same as [usual]. Improving. It’s good to see him on a day-to-day basis.”

Staley is confident that Jackson will have a big role in their defense. 

“What we’ve tried to do is look at training camp,” Staley said. “That’s when our purest evaluation of J.C. Jackson occurred. And we love J.C. Jackson. We have a lot of belief in this guy as a player. He showed us exactly why we went out and signed him.”

Broncos

• Broncos had a top-30 visit with West Florida WR David Durden. (Mike Klis)

Raiders

Raiders GM Dave Ziegler shed some light on what Las Vegas’ plan in free agency was. The team’s big signings were QB Jimmy Garoppolo and WR Jakobi Meyers on big multi-year deals but they also traded away TE Darren Waller and signed a bunch of other players on cheaper contracts. Ziegler said the goal was to improve the roster with the understanding that they wouldn’t be able to fix everything in one offseason. 

“The plan in free agency, I would say we’re still addressing, generally speaking, just a lot of needs that we have on the roster. And I think when you’re doing that, there’s a couple things,” Ziegler said via the Athletic’s Tashan Reed. “No. 1, we have to continue to improve the depth and competition of the team. There’s still a lot of that when we’re going into free agency. I think the plan was to add as many guys as we could in free agency that we felt fit the mold of being smart, tough, dependable and just an element of being explosive, good football players.

“… But also, we want to build a football team that has an edge and has a chip on their shoulder. And I think there’s a certain type of guy that has that, you know what I mean? I think Maxx Crosby has that. I think Davante Adams has that. People forget, when Davante was drafted and brought in the league out of Fresno (State), he didn’t take off right away. From a vision standpoint, that’s what we want to build here and continue to build here. Those were some of the highlights of what we were looking to do in free agency.”

Ziegler said that although they were technically two separate moves and the pick they got from the Giants is at the very end of the round at No. 100 overall, they viewed the Waller trade as swapping the veteran tight end for Meyers and a third-round pick, given the new receiver will make a similar amount as Waller was scheduled to. 

“When you look at the trade in the singular aspect, we traded Darren for a third-round pick, right? Kind of taking a step away, what we ended up doing there is we ended up taking a portion of the money that Darren was making and acquiring Jakobi Meyers plus a third-round pick. So, that’s what ended up precipitating the trade,” Ziegler said. “There was an opportunity to do it and, obviously, we thought it was the best opportunity for the football team. That’s how I really looked at is we ended up moving Darren for Jakobi and a third-round pick. Obviously, I thought that was worth the cost of doing business. Darren’s a phenomenal football player. He’s super talented. He’s super explosive. And Jakobi’s a really good football player, too. Ultimately, we felt like the value of acquiring Jakobi and the third-round pick was good value for us in terms of moving Darren.”

• Despite the need on the offensive line, the Raiders didn’t make any outside additions and re-signed both OL Jermaine Eluemunor and OT Brandon Parker. Ziegler said they elected to do that because they valued continuity upfront and the available free agent linemen were expensive: “It made the most sense to improve the group that way based on the cost of doing business at that position or other positions.”