The Las Vegas Raiders’ new regime is officially in place.
Head coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Spytek had their introductory press conference on Monday, a chance for fans and media to get to know the new duo leading the Silver and Black.
Spytek comes from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he helped build a perennial division winner and won Super Bowl LV in 2021. He played a major part in assembling a championship-level roster.
Now, Spytek is tasked with doing the same in Las Vegas. The Raiders’ roster needs work before it can become a playoff contender.
Spytek was asked at the press conference about how he will go about building a roster.
This was his answer:
"My job for the past nine years has been to see the NFL in its totality every year, so yes, I'm familiar with it,” he said. “We obviously played the Raiders this year in Tampa Bay. My first order of business is going to begin with Coach [Carroll] here. We're going to talk more about the kind of player we want, what it looks like at every position, the kind of person we want. To me, it's vitally important. You're going to hear, I think, both of us continue to talk about that. What does it mean to be a Raider? What are the qualities that we're going to stand for? What are the qualities that everybody that comes into this building is going to stand for? I take that very personally and very seriously as a responsibility of mine. The scouts are in charge of finding the right kind of people to bring into an organization. There's no greater responsibility, I don't think, than that.
"Our character will be our fate in a sense. We're looking for, first, people that love football, that want to compete every day, or there just won't be a place for you here, and that's okay. We want it to be a hard team to make. We want it to be a hard job every day. But for those that are willing to step up to that challenge and be a part of that, there will be a great reward at the end of that. We've both lived it. We know what it looks like. I'm less concerned about roster construction right now and this position or this position. We've got some really good players in this building. Really good, and everybody knows that. They know who they are. Our job is going to be to find more of them, but it's going to start with the person."
Spytek is taking the ‘character first, football second’ approach. Building a good locker room culture with players who mesh together can be a crucially important part of creating a roster.
There is work for Spytek to do, and he knows that. He and Carroll will now work together to build the best and most competitive roster possible.
