The Raiders confirmed that they signed promising S Tyvon Branch to a long term deal Saturday evening, continuing a promising offseason.  Branch's deal is reportedly 4 years and $17.6 million guaranteed and is worth a maximum of $28 million.  The terms of the contract were not announced or confirmed by the team.

Branch had previously been franchised and had signed his franchise tag to appear at the team's mandatory minicamp in June.  Had the team not agreed to a long term deal by tomorrow, June 16th, he would have been required to play under the franchise tag which would have cost the team approximately $6.2 million not only in money but also against the cap.

Instead, under the new contract, Branch will reportedly take home $5.6 million in a signing bonus and his cap number will drop dramatically for 2012 giving the cap-strapped Raiders nearly $4 million in cap savings for this year.

Branch, 25, has been very promising since being taken in the 4th round of the 2008 draft.  He converted to play Safety in the NFL after being a CB in college at UConn.  He has yet to be an actual star in the NFL but the team hopes that aquiring a defensive minded head coach in Dennis Allen and an up and coming defensive coordinator in Jason Taver will help him reach his potential.

TFDS has reviewed Branch's tape, as well.  You can find his Tale of the Tape, here.

According to profootballtalk.com, the Raiders had a representative present at former Baylor WR Josh Gordon's workout, which occured yesterday.  There were representatives from 21 of the 32 teams present, reportedly.

Gordon fits the physical profile of what Reggie McKenzie has been looking for at the WR position, standing 6'3" and 224 pounds.  He also reportedly ran a 4.52 40, which is an impressive time.  He tweaked his leg on the first attempt at the 40 and did not run a second but he was still able to complete the workout.

He measured an impressive 82 inch wingspan which means he'll be able to snag high balls out of the air that smaller DBs will have no chance at intercepting.

The first draft pick of the Reggie McKenzie era, taken in the 3rd round of the 2012 draft, was a tall, athletic RT from Utah named Tony Bergstrom.

Bergstrom, a 3 year starter at RT, started and played in 38 of 39 possible games during his sophmore to senior years.

His senior year he earned honors as first team All-Pac and, according to Utah's football website, was their best overall offensive lineman having won 546 of 639 assignments (OL versus defender) for an 85% overall grade.

Bergstrom graduated high school in 2004 and committed to Utah in 2005 before enrolling on a church mission that lasted until he started the spring term in 2008 as a Freshman.

Bergstrom will be competing with veteran Cooper Carlisle as a LG in training camp as well as learning the nuances of other positions to make himself as versatile as possible.

Now that OTAs and minicamp have concluded, Bergstrom was kind enough to sit down and answer a few questions for TFDS:


Q: What is your home town/state?
Bergstrom: I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and have been there for most of my life.


Q: Did you root for a particular NFL team growing up? Who?  Why?
Bergstrom: Not having any nearby team left me able to pick and choose who to root for.  With that said my first introduction to football was the Madden video game so I've always been a John Madden fan and thus slightly partial to the Raiders.  I also was a bit of a Lions fan (I think it was because they always played on Thanksgiving).

I watched all or most of three games to get an idea of Branch's strengths and weaknesses and came away impressed with what I saw.

The three games I watched were Week 9 against Denver, week 14 against Green Bay and week 17 against San Diego.

I wanted to watch some games later in the year because of the lockout. Defense takes longer than offense to gel and with a shortened offseason, most of the defenses in the NFL had coverage issues early on that are not indicative of their typical coverage abilities.

First, Branch has very good burst and takes the time to diagnose a play before exploding to put himself into a position to make a play. There are many players who do not take that moment to read the play and simply react. Those players are the most likely to fall victim to play action or other misdirection plays. Branch has enough speed to be able to read the play and then still be able to get in front of the action to make a positive play.

Branch is smaller than many Strong Safeties listed as 6'0" and only 205 lbs. Actually, he's probably on the smaller side of Free Safeties as well. Branch played CB in college and was a prolific return-man as well.

Jamal Black is a co-host of the Two Tone Crew podcast and has been playing fantasy football for more than a decade.  Jamal uses statistics heavily in projecting players' future success and attempts to look at football from many different angles to come to the best conclusions.

For more thoughts on the NFL and Fantasy Football, follow him on Twitter @Jamalisms

1. Research
That's an interesting word – "research." Some people think it is a one-time thing, but it's not. One doesn't just prepare and move on. Situations change daily in the NFL. There is a lot of fluff, a lot of fake news stories, and a lot of cloak and dagger performed by coaches as they attempt to project favorable hope for the upcoming season. You can't just read news articles one day and be done... and certainly not on the day of the draft.

You aren't searching for answers, you are researching. The inherent assumption is that it is done multiple times.

I've been playing fantasy football for more than a decade, and results are good. I play in two leagues with family and friends, and you have to go back 5 or so years to find a season that I didn't either win the playoffs or earn the top seed during the regular season. I'm an information junkie when it comes to the NFL, and over the years I've gotten quite good at it. I search, research, and then re-research. It isn't an act so much as a way of life ... and the underlying motive behind most of my media consumption.

At this time last year, the league was still embroiled in the all encompassing lockout.  The lockout ended July 25th, 2011 with the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the league and the players union.

Much of the new CBA was the same as the previous agreement but there were some distinct differences, as well.  One substantial change was the introduction and agreement of a rookie wage scale that took much of the bargaining and pressure out of the first rookie contract and allowed teams and players to focus on getting players into camp on time and sufficiently compensated.

After reviewing some of the CBA language I thought it would be interesting to breakdown some of the basics of how this rookie wage formula works.

The way that the salaries for rookies are calculated has it's genesis in what is termed "rookie allocation" in the CBA.  The rookie allocation is determined using calculations of percentages of the overall Salary Cap and the rookie allocation for each player is determined, per the CBA, "based upon the number, round and position of the Club's selection choices in the Draft."

Lamarr Houston showed a lot of promise his rookie season in 2010 and many fans, media and, presumably, coaches thought he'd really be able to become a force at LDE last season. Houston did not have a bad season - he actually put up good numbers on tackles with 51 total - but his sack numbers dropped precipitately in 2011. Houston was only able to bring the QB down once last season and his personal inability to get to the QB was mirrored by the others on the defensive line.

I took some time to go through film to see what Houston can do and where his limitations lie. I watched two games from last season - game 4 versus New England and week 6 versus Cleveland.

First, some positives. When Houston is on, he's very powerful. He can really do a great job of setting the perimeter by pusing around the RT and driving him into the backfield. He's a strong run defender and can disengage from his man to make a tackle. He's also able to push his man to disrupt the RB who may be trying to bounce it outside and allow another player to come in for a tackle for loss, even if he isn't credited with the tackle.

More specifically, Houston's bull rush move was very good - not too surprising because the 6'3" 305 lbs Houston played DT in college. Houston has a good size/motor combination, being able to combine a bigger body with a sustained high energy effort. This high effort helps mask some of the deficiencies in his game just by shear force of will.

Let's talk about some of those deficiencies. First, Houston's effort can be very inconsistent. On some plays he bursts off the line and is able to bull rush the RT back and get himself into a disruption in the backfield but many times he's not as quick off the line. I especially noticed that he tends to give up on plays earlier if the call is a running play that goes to the right side of the defense. Elite DE players can make a great deal of plays on backside pursuit where they can close on a runner who tries to cut back. Houston did not show good backside pursuit and did not make plays when the runner went towards the right side of the offense.