Clelin

Ferrell

Ferrell will join his fourth team since entering the NFL in 2019. He spent 2023 with the Niners, totaling 28 tackles and 3.5 sacks over 17 games. Ferrell should have a shot for much more playing time in Washington, which sported one of the league’s worst pass rushes last year.

Ferrell missed a second straight practice with a knee issue after playing in all seventeen regular season games. He seems headed to an inactive status for the Divisional Round game against the Packers, being the only 49er that did not practice on Wednesday. Ferrell will rest and try to return for the NFC Championship game, if the 49ers can advance.

Ferrell was the fourth overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. Most pundits believed the pick to be a reach and that turned out to be true. By his third year, Ferrell had been relegated to backup duties. In 2022, he registered just two sacks and three TFLs across 16 games, four of which were starts. He is an interesting flyer for a team that often gets the most out of their defensive line, but don’t expect much more than a rotational role for the first-round bust.

Shocking. The No. 4 overall pick in the 2019 draft, Ferrell has eight sacks total in three seasons and was just a rotational player last year. It is not a given Ferrell makes the roster out of training camp. Las Vegas also declined the options for Josh Jacobs and Johnathan Abram.

Vegas also turned down the fifth-year options for DE Clelin Ferrell and S Johnathan Abram. The team’s new leadership likely wants Jacobs to prove himself in 2022 after an up-and-down three years with the Raiders. Former head coach Jon Gruden refused to give Jacobs a workhorse role despite Jacobs showing he was a capable three-down back. After Kenyan Drake was lost for the season in 2021, Jacobs went on a tear, and thanks in part to his pass-catching role, was fantasy’s sixth highest scoring RB in the season’s final six weeks. The Raiders taking a running back in the 2022 draft could complicate things for Jacobs and Drake.

That’s “let alone a starting role.” It would appear Ferrell has fallen behind each of Yannick Ngakoue, Maxx Crosby and Solomon Thomas on the depth chart. Per Tafur, coach Jon Gruden “almost forgot about Ferrell” when talking about the Raiders’ defensive line on the first day of camp before "(catching) himself.” “Certainly, he’s going to be competing,” Gruden claimed of Ferrell. The No. 4 overall pick of the 2019 draft already had his playing time dialed back last season, clearing 50 snaps only four times. The Raiders are simply killing their chances of building a deep 53-man roster with awful early-round selections.

The Raiders enter Week 16 relatively healthy. After suffering a groin injury that forced him to miss most of Week 15, Derek Carr is back in as the starter for the Raiders this week. He remains nothing more than a QB2 but his presence does give a notable boost to the offense as a whole.

It’s the second straight missed game for Ferrell, who didn’t practice all week. Ferrell looks on the wrong side of questionable for the Raiders’ season finale in Week 17.

That is an uncomfortable amount of notable names on defense for the Raiders in a must-win contest. Ferrell is week to week with a shoulder injury after previously battling COVID-19.

Ferrell was beginning to break out in his second NFL season before this injury kicked in. It’s unclear how severe it is, but it’s never a good sign when a player is ruled out during the game. The Raiders defense has been a total joke against the Colts, and now they’ll be without S Johnathan Abram who appeared to have suffered a concussion in the second half.