Darren Waller named greatest strength for Raiders heading into 2021 season
By now, everyone knows that the best player on the roster for the Raiders is Darren Waller. Coming off back-to-back 1,100-yard seasons, Waller earned the first Pro Bowl honor of his career in 2020. However, there is a chance that we haven’t even seen the ceiling yet for the former Georgia Tech wide receiver.
Consider this. During the final five games of the 2020 season, Waller totaled 654 yards and four touchdowns. Projecting that through an entire 16-game schedule and you are looking at nearly 2,100 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns.
Obviously, he won’t be able to produce those types of numbers in 2021, but there is a chance that his late-season run is closer to the player we see this season than what we saw in 2019 and 2020. Needless to say, Waller is a superstar who is the most important player on this offense, outside of Derek Carr.
In a recent article by Ben Linsey of Pro Football Focus, he named every team’s biggest strength heading into the 2021 season. That means, of course, Waller was named for the Raiders. Here is what the site had to say about the Pro Bowl tight end entering the season:
“Darren Waller has at least earned a spot at the table in the conversation for league’s best tight end with his play over the past two seasons. Since 2019, Waller has more contested catches (27) and receiving yards after the catch (1,188) than any other tight end in the NFL. He ranks second to only Travis Kelce in receptions of at least 15 yards over that same stretch (55). The missed time from George Kittle last season due to injury plays a part in some of those ranks, but Waller has been nothing short of elite.”
Not many teams have a weapon in the passing game like Waller and only a few have it at tight end. If the Raiders can develop a few complementary players around Waller, this has a chance to be a special offense.
If Waller can continue to produce at the level we saw in the last six or eight games of the 2020 season, there is a great chance we are talking about him as the consensus best-tight end in football at this time next season.
