Recently I broke down the Las Vegas Raiders 3-3-5 defense, and their need for a big nickel. Additionally, the Raiders have shown a big emphasis on trying to fix their special teams unit that was a historically bad unit in 2025. The Raiders safety room currently features Jeremy Chinn at the strong safety/big nickel, Dalton Johnson/Treydan Stukes as a BANDIT safety and FS role, followed up by Isaiah Pola-Mao, Tristin McCollum, and undrafted free agents Devin Lafayette and Tanner Wall.
Stukes, Johnson, Chinn, and likely Pola-Mao are set to be on the Raiders roster with Stukes playing a diverse FS, nickel, bandit, and strong safety role while Dalton Johnson should take a free safety position with Chinn/Pola-Mao playing big nickel and strong safety roles. NFL teams traditionally carry five safeties, with the fifth being a special teams standout, and/or a diverse chess piece. The Raiders currently have a battle for that spot among three players as noted above and the biggest leader seems to be UDFA Devin Lafayette.
Lafayette, a 6’2/215 pound undrafted free agent primarily played a big nickel role for the Troy Trojans where he logged 114 tackles, 4 TFL, 2 INT, 9 PBU, and 2 FF in 2025 while being an honorable mention All-American and first team All Sun Belt. Lafayette spent nearly 70% of his snaps in 2025, which by far was his best season, playing in the box as a big nickel. That’s translated to the NFL, where Lafayette was a quick standout in OTA’s working his way into NFL team drills compared to just special teams. Additionally, Lafayette has also started training camp with the 2nd team defense in nickel positions playing right behind Jeremy Chinn and ahead of Isaiah Pola-Mao at the position. Lafayette is a limited athlete, but he’s able to diagnose the run exceptionally well (7% missed tackle rate in his career at NIU & Troy), and he showed a good ability to cut the top of the defense, play physical, and enjoys to defend the run. In coverage, Lafayette did a good job staying in his breaks, utilizing leverage, and finding a way to play the ball.
The best standout route for Lafayette may be on special teams, while Las Vegas does have standouts with Tommy Eichenberg, Segun Olubi, and Cody Lindenberg they lack a true gunner and/or flyer (KO gunner) on the unit. Lafayette stood out on special teams at Troy with 17 career tackles and just 3 missed tackles plus a FF. The Raiders will likely carry a 5th safety if the player can push for special teams and/or standout in diverse packages which Rob Leonard will look to run. Lafayette is an instinctive player, and he’s shown the ability to immediately make an impact early in training camp.
