At the cutdown to 53 players, the Raiders left themselves with just four linebackers. However, there were also the reports they had expressed some interest in trading for Kiko Alonso from the Dolphins. That interest made a lot more sense with Mike Mayock saying the was “only going to keep four or five linebackers.”
Well, there interest apparently wasn’t enough reel in the 29-year-old linebacker. He has been traded to the Saints instead in exchange for linebacker Vince Biegel according to Ian Rapoport.
Alonso to Oakland made sense not just from a positional need standpoint, but from a homecoming standpoint.