There's been so much action and so much conversation around the silver and black.

It's hard to realize we're only one week into the new league year.

That plus more comes up on Monday's edition of the Locked on Raiders podcast for March 16th, 2026.

You are Locked on Raiders, your daily Las Vegas Raiders podcast, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every every day. Welcome to a Raider Nation to another edition of the Locked-on Raiders podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your number one sports podcast network. We're very proud of that. We're also very proud of the fact that this show continues to grow each and every day, and that's because of your consistent support and the great job that my man Ari does behind the scenes,

making sure we look good and sound good by way at the YouTube page. And trust and believe you can see how much this show has continued to grow in a major way, especially this offseason with all the different twist and turns that have gone on around the silver and black. So Reda Nation, thank you so much for that support. It does mean a whole lot. Of course, we've got a lot of ways to get a hold of the show.

You can hit up Ari at Ari producers on Twitter.

You can hit me up at your boy Q254. And if you want to be a part of the show, we got the Lockdown Raider podcast voicemail line for you, 707-654-4-6-9-3. We have so many calls and text. There's no way we can ever get all of them on. Try to get as many in as possible. Try to be selective. Try to get some new calls on here and there. But it's really hard to get everyone on. So just bear with us. But we'll definitely do as much as possible. As a matter of fact, we'll close out the show hearing from you as we normally do. Calls and text coming up, segment number three. Segment number two, going to talk about something that every single time I've done an interview and trust and believe, I've done a ton of interviews around the Raiders, even on Sunday. Multiple outlets had me on talking about the Raiders. This conversation keeps coming up. And it's not Max Crosby. Thank goodness. It's not Max Crosby, even though that conversation comes up as well. But it's not it. It's the bridge quarterback and who the bridge quarterback should be should the Raiders have a bridge quarterback. And of course, Derek Carr's name pops up as well. So of course, I'm not going to go there with D.C. But we'll talk about the bridge quarterback coming up in segment number two here in segment number one, just news and notes of the day. We'll jump into it after I tell you about the title sponsor of the show, which is Fandall.

Fandall, is giving you a way to turn that energy into even bigger potential wins with a college basketball parley, profit boosts, head to fandole.com to get started today. So on Friday, the Raiders made a couple more free agent signings official. wide receiver, Derek Young.

The Raiders made that official, signed him,

and put out the email, spent the last four seasons with the Seahawks. He played nine games, recorded two catches with 48 yards and 10 kickoff returns with 32 yards. So basically kind of lets you know what he is. He's going to be a core special teams guy. And look, none of these signings that they're going to make last week at the end of last

week or even this week are going to be like big deals, right? And it just kind of is what it is, right? They made their big splashes earlier. Obviously, Tyler Lindembaum was the big deal, but, you know, Nacobie Dean and Quay Walker and all those guys, those are the big names. Now you're going to start to see some guys that they bring in to kind of fill out the roster.

So Dorek Young, again, a core special teams guy. That's who he is. And then also fullback, Connor Hayward. And that was actually one that was, I don't want to say more exciting, but one that you were looking forward to because you knew that the Raiders were looking for a fullback. Didn't know if they were going to get one by way of free agency.

Didn't know if they were going to land one in the draft, what they were going to do. But they went out and made the move for Connor Hayward. He comes over from the Pittsburgh Steelers. And so they made that official on Friday. He says Hayward entered the NFL's a six-round pick at 2022. He's appeared in 68 games. 14 starts during his four-year career, compiled 44 receptions for 3179 yards and three touchdowns while rushing for 70 yards and two

touchdowns on 18 carries. So the thing about Hayward, which is kind of cool, is that he was a

tight end. He was a tight end converted to fullback. So he has the versatility. So I had Ted Winn

on from The Athletic on my radio show on Friday just to talk about what he can do. And basically his biggest thing was as he was looking at film and thinking how he'd fit in Clint Kubiak's offense, he basically was saying the more reps he gets, like he'll be more of a traditional fullback at first. But the more he gets reps, the more experience he gets out there, then you can start to see a little bit of versatility. So then you might all of a sudden start to see him, you know, have more of a bigger role on offense, like catching more passes, getting into the end zone here and there, right? Spider-2-Banana or Spider-Wy2 banana, whatever that John Gruden call always is that we always talk about when it comes to the fullback. You can start to see more plays like that. He also kind of

a couple of fighter, Y, two, banana, whatever that John Gruden call always is that we always talk about when it comes to the fullback. You can start to see more plays like that. He also kind of compared him to, I guess, a poor man's Kyle Ushack for the 49ers. And the only reason I bring him up, and Ted did as well is because always in that Kyle Shanahan-led offense, you could always kind of tell where the ball was going to go, where the plane was designed to go by following the fullback, right? Just kind of watch the fullback. So kind of, you know, something to think about when you think about Connor Hayward. But like I said, that became official on Friday as well. A lot of people have asked, what does the salary cap space look like at this stage of the game? Over the cap.com has the rateers at $24 million in cap space, but about $12 million in effective cap space. So obviously not a whole lot. You need about $10 million for your draft class. So again, there's not going to be a whole lot of moving and shaking when it comes to what the Raiders are going to be doing as far as free agency after or outside of the ones that they've already signed, sealed, and delivered.

And you know, for the most part, and I talked about this on my radio show on Friday,

I thought this offseason so far from the minute that Pete Carroll got fired and John Spitech

and Tom Brady were announced as, you know, leading the football operations, obviously

John Spitech being the general manager and Tom Brady helping out as well, that this has been a pretty efficient, pretty productive, and an offseason

that really gives this organization hope. Not one of those, again, I say it all the time, I reference

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