3 Raiders who need to be benched or fired after Week 2 debacle

If there were any good feelings about the Las Vegas Raiders on the heels of edging out the rival Broncos in Week 1, they quickly dissipated in Week 2 with the trip to Buffalo.

The Bills put a complete hurting on the Raiders this past Sunday, beating them into the ground in a 38-10 drubbing. Frankly, there weren't many areas outside of Davante Adams that looked good for this team. And it's clear that changes need to be made for the Las Vegas depth chart moving forward if things are going to turn around.

Specifically, the Raiders should seriously consider benching these players, either for the short- or long-term, in order to shake things up and get underperformers off of the field for a team that can't afford that.

Raiders who deserve to be benched, No. 3: Bilal Nichols, DT

When you looked at the defensive front for the Raiders coming into the 2023 season, it could've gone either way. There were several players, Bilal Nichols included, who have flashed at times in their careers, but who needed to bounce back this year for Las Vegas to field a formidable defense.

Through two games, it has certainly gone the wrong way for Nichols and, really, the defense at large.

Nichols was absolutely eaten alive by the Bills, a team that has struggled to construct a solid rushing attack in recent years, in the ground game in Week 2. He allowed numerous chunk plays from Josh Allen, James Cook, and Damien Harris and offered little resistance as a space-eater on the interior.

Over his first two games, Nichols has graded out as the 109th-best interior defensive lineman in the NFL by PFF (subscription required). Only 124 players have qualified with enough snaps, highlighting how bad it's been with Nichols and the Raiders.

The difficult part with benching Nichols is that he's already involved in a rotation and no one on the Raiders defensive line has been good. That being said, giving more snaps to rookie Byron Young to allow him to develop or, at the very least, prove they need to reasess after the 2023 season is a more favorable option than a veteran like Nichols struggling mightily out there.