Broncos rivals just made a trade to make their defense worse than it was

The AFC West got a lot more competitive in the 2025 offseason when the Las Vegas Raiders brought Pete Carroll out of retirement to be their head coach, and followed up that move by trading for Geno Smith and drafting Ashton Jeanty. You could argue nobody made more substantial upgrades to their backfield in the entire NFL this offseason. But the Denver Broncos might not have anything to really fear, because the Raiders could potentially have the worst defense in the NFL in 2025.

And they just made a head-scratching trade to potentially make it even worse.

The Raiders traded away cornerback Jakorian Bennett, a promising fourth-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, to the Philadelphia Eagles, of all teams.

Broncos can only laugh as Raiders gifted Eagles Jakorian Bennett in a trade

In a rare player-for-player training camp trade, the Raiders sent Jakorian Bennett to the Philadelphia Eagles for Thomas Booker IV, a fifth-round pick of the Texans in 2022 who appeared in 17 games as a rotational player last year.

Even if Bennett wasn't a guarantee to make the Raiders' roster, he had eight passes broken up in 10 games played last year, and is one of the few players in that Raiders secondary that has shown anything at all over the last couple of seasons. The Raiders have already lost Christian Wilkins, Robert Spillane, Nate Hobbs, and Trevon Moehrig from their defense this offseason, and they've been replacing them with mostly former NFL Draft busts or reclamation project types of players.

The other element of this is that the Eagles were clearly motivated to add Bennett to their roster, which means GM Howie Roseman and old friend Vic Fangio wanted him on their team. The Raiders have a new GM -- former Broncos and Bucs exec John Spytek -- who clearly missed the memo. If the Eagles want someone on your team, it's probably time to reevaluate your thought process on that player.

It's not like the Raiders have a plethora of depth at corner, or an embarrassment of riches like the Broncos have right now. They are weak all over the place defensively and need young players to step up and become foundational pieces.

To trade Bennett now feels like roster malpractice, because Thomas Booker hasn't really done anything in his first three NFL seasons. And the Eagles are shuffling their defensive front this offseason, so why would the Raiders covet a guy the Eagles didn't want?

This is just the latest in a long series of laughable moves by the Broncos rivals.