Raiders depth chart: James Cregg finding the right mix on offensive line

A stay in Sin City with another team for James Cregg parlayed itself into an opportunity to lead his own unit.

“I was obviously at San Francisco last year, we were playing in the Super Bowl here in Vegas,” Cregg began, “So I came to Vegas, I didn’t know I was going to be staying in Vegas.”

The former 49ers assistant offensive line coach is now full-fledged Las Vegas Raiders offensive line coach. Turns out, that prep time San Francisco’s prep time in Las Vegas for their Super Bowl matchup with the AFC West dominating Kansas City Chiefs gave Cregg plenty of tape and time to examine the Silver & Black — particularly since the Raiders win over the Chiefs Christmas Day was film Cregg and 49ers offensive line boss Chris Foerster watched — provided Cregg great insight to the coachability of the Raiders front line.

Cregg liked what he saw from afar and when he got the call, he was more than eager to jump at the chance to be the chef to cook up Las Vegas’ offensive line in 2024.

“And I was watching those guys for two weeks just on tape, and I saw it. And then soon as I got a call from Luke Getsy to see if I’d be interested in taking this opportunity, I jumped at it because I watched what I saw on the tape,” Cregg noted. “I saw Thayer Munford. I saw those kinds of guys like that. I saw Andre James. I saw all those guys. Kolton (Miller) was the missing piece in that game, but I know Kolton Miller, I’ve seen a ton of his film. I didn’t think twice about it. It’s a great opportunity for me, and I’m excited as heck to work with these guys. It’s going to be cool, man. I can’t wait.”

Cregg wasted little time acclimating himself to the Raiders personnel in the trenches. The offensive line has long been the lifeblood of any NFL offense and with Luke Getsy the new play caller on offense, Cregg’s unit becomes an integral part to what Las Vegas intends to do offensively. As Cregg mentioned, Miller at left tackle remains a stalwart piece of the group up front. The team also brought back James on a new contract to man the pivot while drafting a bruiser type youngster in Jackson Powers-Johnson and versatile prospect DJ Glaze to bolster a group that features Dylan Parham and Thayer Munford as projected starters. Las Vegas did well to bring in veterans Cody Whitehair (31) and Andrus Peat (30) via free agency to compete for spots at guard, too.

 Photo by Kirby Lee/Getty Images

Cregg’s tinkering and finding the right mix along the offensive line will continue when the team reconvenes for training camp later in July, but the line boss already made a swap on the right side of the group with Parham, who was the starter at left guard, sliding over to the right.

“Yeah, first of all very athletic young man got a good, strong lower body to him, obviously has the strength and quickness to go along with what we want. And like you just said he has that experience from last year,” Gregg said about Parham. “I think he’s grown quite a bit from last season, obviously I wasn’t around him that much, but I could see it right now how he learns, how he’s developing, and I think that’s a huge asset for him on that right side with Thayer.”

That was the first clue-in to the move as teams will often experiment with different combos along the offensive line to find the right grouping in OTA’s and mandatory minicamps. The Raiders last regime continued to move pieces up front even at the start of the regular season last year to find the proper grouping, for example. So Parham at right guard could’ve just been tinkering. But according to Cregg, that’s where Parham fits best due to the the scheme Cregg is installing that best suits Getsy’s offense.

“Yeah, just watching him and doing what we’re doing, we run more wide zone and things like that and he’s just more natural, especially him being a center,” Parham expanded on Parham. “Sometimes centers are more natural being right-handed guys than they are left-handed guys for whatever reason, and he he’s just more natural moving over there. And we just liked the way his footwork was better over there and things like that. The game was more natural for him over there, that’s why we moved him.”

Look at that: Putting a player in the best possible position to succeed based on natural tendencies. Such a novel concept.

But that’s the common-sense nature that Cregg’s displayed throughout his tenure as a coach — a career that’s seen him run groups at the pro and collegiate level including a 2019 season where his LSU offensive line won the Joe Moore award for best O-line in college football and a 2020 campaign where LSU won a national championship.

Cregg will do more work to develop a solid starting five along the offensive line as competition will heat up at left guard and right tackle. With Parham sliding over to right, left is a position that can be claimed by Johnson-Powers, Whitehair, or Peat, with the runner-ups providing depth to the eventual starter. At right tackle, Munford has the inside track with Glaze slated to compete. Undrafted free agent Andrew Coker could get in the mix, too.

From watching film of the Raiders offensive line to being in charge of them, Cregg remains optimistic of the group and praised the groups ability to learn and adapt. Fortunately for the group, Cregg isn’t reinventing the wheel and some of the things the players did under the previous regime will remain.

“Yep. And we still do a little bit of what they do too. It’s funny, I don’t spend as much time drilling that, because they sort of know how to do it already,” Cregg noted. “So, I’m not going to spend my time doing something they already know, and I’m spending more time right now trying to implement our stuff with them because we do variations of what they did before and their technique is pretty sound with that, so I’m not really messing around with that right now.”

That’ll come in due time — most likely training camp and beyond.

As we’ve stated before, this isn’t Cregg’s first rodeo as a Raiders coach.

He was an assistant offensive line coach under Tom Cable on head coach Lane Kiffin’s staff in 2007. Cregg would remain in 2008 after Kiffin’s dismissal and Cable was elevated to interim head coach. But Cregg ended up coaching Kiffin’s Tennessee Volunteers offensive line in 2009 with the duo going to USC together as offensive line coach and head coach from 2010 to 2013. Which means the tweet from Kiffin below when Cregg was hired to lead the Raiders offensive line this coming season came to no one’s surprise: