Raiders host free-agent DL Darius Philon on visit

The Raiders’ new regime is monitoring one of the free agents who played a key role during the Jon Gruden/Rich Bisaccia season. Darius Philon met with the team Thursday, according to Field Yates of ESPN.com.

Philon, 28, completed a comeback after two seasons out of the league, playing in 11 Raiders games and making decent contributions as a rotational defensive lineman. This included key work in the team’s Week 18 marathon against the Chargers, but Philon suffered a season-ending injury — a torn patellar tendon — during that five-period contest. This will give the five-year veteran the task of completing another comeback.

A four-year Chargers contributor, Philon registered two sacks and five tackles for loss during his Raiders campaign. Both sacks came in the first game against his former team — an October loss — but he logged 277 defensive snaps despite his hiatus. Philon saw an arrest lead to his Cardinals release in the summer of 2019, and no team signed him until the Raiders gave him a shot in March of last year.

Patellar tendon tears represent one of the toughest injuries to surmount, so the new Raiders regime gauging his mid-offseason status makes sense. The Raiders brought back another of the previous regime’s D-line cogs in Johnathan Hankins but have also made several outside additions up front. Vernon Butler, Andrew Billings, Bilal Nichols and Kyle Peko signed with the Raiders in recent weeks, forming a mostly new interior D-line cast in Vegas.