The Las Vegas Raiders will hold the 1st overall spot for the NFL’s waiver order, a system that allows teams to claim players who have been “waived” by their previous team. A player is waived when they have accrued 4 or less seasons in the NFL. To accrue an NFL season, a player must either have been on the team’s IR, PUP (unless on for a non-football injury), or active roster for 6 more games in a season.
Teams often use the NFL’s initial roster cuts as a good way to continue building depth, add young
developing players, or fill a need opened by injury in training camp. In 2022, the Jaguars held the number one overall claim where they were awarded 2 players, in 2023 the Jaguars again claimed 5 players, in 2024 the Panthers claimed six players, and in 2025 the Titans claimed 5. Looking back over the course of the last decade, only two teams holding the number one overall waiver spot claimed less than 4 players, and three of the ten claimed more than 5.
In 2018, the Colts claimed EDGE Al-Quadin Muhammad who’s gone on to enjoy an 8 year career with over 45 career sacks. In 2023 the Seahawks claimed former Raiders linebacker Drake Thomas, who would go on to play nearly 800 snaps in 2025 during their Super Bowl run. Additionally, the Colts added T Ryan Hayes in 2023 who has served as high end depth with spot starts as well. 2024 saw the Raiders claim DT Jonah Laulu, who’s played over 1800 snaps in his career along with S Thomas Harper who played 500 snaps in 2026 for the Lions after being claimed off waivers by them during the Raiders waivers post training camp. Additionally, 2022 notably saw the Bears claim former Raiders tackle Alex Leatherwood off waivers, along with the Eagles claiming former 49ers 4th round runningback Trey Sermon.
The Raiders currently have a noticeable lack of depth at parts of their roster, specifically linebacker, defensive tackle, safety, and arguably runningback/tight end. Las Vegas has the luxury of quality depth near the bottom of their roster in certain spots, but are truly lacking players in key areas that can contribute on special teams, develop to future impact players, and/or round out specific key roles on the roster. While I will detail a full list of possible waiver claims more into camp, Las Vegas will need to be careful about losing some of their own talent to waivers as they have in recent seasons with Harper, Thomas, and others. With the first overall claim, Las Vegas and GM John Spytek will have the opportunity to add talent to a roster that may see needs flare up, and/or add more competition into rooms requiring such.
