I was watching SNF last night, and watching another strong performance from the Raiders o-line. Then, I realized that the Raiders o-line was made up in a similar way to ours, yet there's was so much better. Hudson, Osemele and Penn were all FA's brought in over the past couple of years and have all been excellent pick ups for them. Then, they have 2 early/mid round draft picks on the right side of their line in Watson and Jackson.
If you think about it, it's very similar to how Licht tried building the line. In the past few off-seasons, we have signed EDS, Anthony Collins and JR Sweezy (C, OT, OG just like Hudson, Osemele and Penn). Collins was a complete bust, EDS can't even start over Hawley and is decent depth at best, and Sweezy has yet to see the field since we've signed him. Then, we have Smith and Marpet as our 2 early/mid round picks. Marpet has been good, and I thought Smith was playing fine up until these past few weeks, so it looks like we got pretty similar talent there.
Thought it was interesting on how much of the Raiders o-line was built from FA as a lot of people say to avoid FA for the most part and build through the draft. While I agree building through the draft is very important, signing FA's is too and the Raiders sure are proving that with some other signings they have had too (Crabtree, Perry Riley, Sean Smith, etc). Now, it also helps that the Raiders have drafted well too obviously, but these good FA signings have been huge for their team as they haven't been whiffing on their big signings and are bringing in quality players who are immediately contributing.
Imagine how different this team/offense would be if Licht didn't screw the pooch with these signings and actually picked up the quality players at the positions...