The Oakland Raiders announced that they have signed former Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Ethan Westbrooks while also waiving both defensive tackle Ronald Ollie and tight end Erik Swoope as corresponding moves.
Westbrooks went undrafted in 2014 out of West Texas A&M and spent his first five seasons with the St. Louis and Los Angeles Rams. In 67 career games (11 starts) for the Rams, Westbrooks had 79 total tackles, nine sacks and 20 tackles for loss.
He played in all 16 games in 2018 but didn’t start any and only had eight total tackles, one sack and one tackle for loss.
The Raiders’ defensive line was the worst in the NFL at getting to the quarterback last season, so if Westbrooks impresses during Training Camp and the preseason then he may have an opportunity to carve out a role for himself.
Ollie was signed as an undrafted free agent this offseason out of Nicholls State. The former ‘Last Chance U’ star has been dealing with an injury at the start of Training Camp that has kept him off the field though, and Raiders head coach Jon Gruden revealed that was the reason why they cut him, via Michael Gehlken of the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Jon Gruden said DT Ronald Ollie “didn’t participate much. When he did, unfortunately, we chose to go in a different direction.” Raiders waived him today.
— Michael Gehlken (@GehlkenNFL) July 30, 2019
Swoope was another player that the Raiders signed this offseason to help address the void at tight end after Jared Cook left in free agency. The presence of Darren Waller of Foster Moreau made it difficult for him to make the roster though.
As camp progresses, the Raiders will make a ton of roster moves as they search for the 53-man roster, so this may be the first, but it won’t be the last roster shift we see this month.
