Las Vegas Raiders Predicted To Cut Pro Bowl Defender In Surprise Move

In a Bleacher Report article titled, “1 Player Each NFL Team Should Cut Before the 2025 Season” released on Thursday August 14, 2025, NFL Analyst Gary Davenport predicted the Las Vegas Raiders will cut linebacker Jaylon Smith before Week 1.

“Smith just isn’t an NFL-caliber linebacker anymore,” Davenport wrote. “And truthfully, he hasn’t been for some time.” 

Davenport went on to explain that he believes the knee injury Smith suffered during his last season at Notre Dame in 2015 completely altered the trajectory of his career. He believes that is still what’s holding him back from being an NFL-level defender. 

Smith spent the 2024 season out of football. He has been attempting to make a comeback with Las Vegas this season. 

Could Davenport Be Wrong About Smith? 

Davenport’s evaluation of Smith is interesting because it’s not like he’s had a complete disaster of a career. 

Sure, he fell from a projected Top 5 pick to the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft because of his injury. But Smith carved out a solid career for himself from 2017-2020 with the Dallas Cowboys. He played every game for them those four seasons and started 48 straight. 

He even made the Pro Bowl with Dallas in 2019, a season in which he had 142 total tackles, 2.5 sacks, a fumble recovery and an interception. 

After he was surpassed on the depth chart by Micah Parsons and Keanu Neal and cut by the Cowboys in 2021, he has had trouble finding a home. But as recently as 2022, he had 88 tackles in a season. 

Also, nothing that the Raiders have put out has indicated that Smith will be cut. The Raiders just released their second unofficial depth chart of the preseason ahead of their second preseason game against the San Francisco 49ers. 

On that depth chart, Smith is listed as a second string outside linebacker behind Devin White. He’s ahead of third-stringer, undrafted rookie Matt Jones, a Baylor football legend. 

Are the Raiders really going to cut a guy who’s their clear No. 1 backup at a key position? I think Jones would need to have a pretty unbelievable rest of camp and the preseason to make that the case. 

Raiders Have Overhauled Linebacker Room 

Jaylon Smith was brought in this offseason as part of a complete positional overhaul for the Raiders at linebacker.

5 of their top 6 linebackers on the depth chart, or every starter and second stringer except Tommy Eichenberg, was brought in as a free agent. 

Of those 5 newcomers, three have been to the Pro Bowl and one is a two-time Super Bowl champion. The fifth one, Germaine Pratt, might be better than all of them at this point in his career. 

The Raiders have loaded up on experienced, accomplished players at LB in their first year of the Pete Carroll era. That trend makes it seem only more likely that they keep Smith around. Regardless, Smith is certainly a player for fans to keep a close eye on for the rest of the preseason. 

What do you think, Raiders fans? Is Davenport on to something, that Jaylon Smith is going to get cut before the season? Or will he get to continue his epic comeback story?