The top center on the market is cashing in with a new team.
Tyler Linderbaum has agreed to a three-year deal with the Raiders worth $81 million, including $60 million in guarantees, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported, per sources.
Linderbaum, who is coming off three consecutive Pro Bowl seasons in Baltimore, was the No. 4-ranked player on Gregg Rosenthal's Top 101 free agents list. The soon-to-be 26-year-old was clearly the top player available at the position in an offseason in which center value jumped significantly due to some surprise roster changes, but no need was arguably greater than the one that existed in Las Vegas, where the Raiders had cap space to burn and a void to fill at the pivot spot.
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They did so by throwing a massive bag of cash at Linderbaum, resetting the center market with a $27 million-per-year contract that moves Linderbaum into the top five in average annual salary for all offensive linemen, a place rarely occupied by blockers who aren't manning a tackle spot. With this deal, Linderbaum will outpace the previous top earner -- Kansas City's Creed Humphrey -- by $9 million per year, a staggering difference for the position.
The price tag is exorbitant but necessary to convince a top free agent to join the Raiders, a team in desperate need of quality performance up front.
Though they didn't grade as the worst by most standards, a season-long review of their tape paints a picture of an inept protection unit that couldn't hold up for Geno Smith and couldn't prevent tacklers from meeting first-round rookie Ashton Jeanty in the backfield consistently. Linderbaum is the first step toward addressing that issue while also solving a conundrum that saw the Raiders move Jordan Meredith -- an interior lineman with zero prior experience at center -- to the position to start the 2025 season.
Now, they have a firm -- and well paid -- answer at that spot.
Linderbaum has only missed two games in his four seasons in the NFL (all spent with Baltimore, who made him a first-round pick in 2022) and became the first Ravens offensive lineman to earn three Pro Bowl selections since Marshal Yanda went to six consecutive Pro Bowls from 2011-2016.
Conversely, Linderbaum is also coming off the worst season of his career as far as pass protection is concerned, allowing a pressure percentage (5.9) that ranked as the sixth-highest among the 21 centers with 500-plus pass blocking snaps in 2025, per Next Gen Stats.
It's not a guarantee that Linderbaum will suddenly and permanently solve the Raiders' interior issues up front. But with the most cap space available entering 2026 and plenty of holes to fill, Las Vegas acted with conviction when negotiating with Linderbaum and will proceed forward with an offseason victory earned at center.