Raiders Sign Michael Mayer to $45 Million Extension as Brock Bowers Sits Out Opener After Knee Surgery

The Las Vegas Raiders enter Sunday's season opener against the Miami Dolphins without their most productive offensive player from a year ago, tight end Brock Bowers, who has been ruled out after knee surgery earlier in the week. One day before kickoff, the club moved to secure the player stepping into the void: on Saturday it signed backup tight end Michael Mayer to a three-year, contract extension worth $45 million, including $30 million guaranteed, according to ESPN's report on the deal, which cited NFL Network's Ian Rapoport.

The Raiders' official Week 1 injury report, issued Friday, lists Bowers with a knee injury, no practice participation on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, and a final designation of "out" for the 4:25 p.m. ET kickoff at Allegiant Stadium.

The numbers behind the moves

Bowers underwent a meniscus trim in Dallas on Tuesday, an injury that surfaced during training camp but was not diagnosed until the week before the opener, according to NFL.com's report on the surgery. The 13th overall pick out of Georgia in 2024, Bowers caught 112 passes for 1,194 yards and five touchdowns as a rookie, leading all tight ends in receptions and yards after catch and earning first-team All-Pro recognition from the Associated Press, just the fourth rookie tight end since 1960 to be so honored.

• Bowers: 112 catches, 1,194 yards, 5 touchdowns as a rookie in 2024; AP first-team All-Pro
• Bowers missed five games in 2025 with a PCL sprain and bone bruise in the same left knee
• Mayer: three-year, $45 million extension with $30 million guaranteed, signed one day before Week 1
• Mayer's 2025 relief stint for an injured Bowers: 18 catches for 196 yards and a touchdown in four games

Mayer, a 2023 second-round pick out of Notre Dame, has totaled 83 receptions for 788 yards and three touchdowns over three seasons, per the team's transaction announcement, and set career highs last season with 35 catches for 328 yards while working around Bowers' absences. The extension's $15 million average annual value ranks fourth among current tight end contracts, a notable commitment to a player who has spent most of his career as the Raiders' No. 2 option at the position.

The dollar figures illustrate how quickly the tight end market has shifted since Bowers arrived. Mayer's deal, reached the same week his positional competition went under the knife, locks in a proven complementary target even as the Raiders hope their more explosive pass catcher returns within weeks rather than months.

A recurring knee problem

Bowers' latest setback follows a season in which the same knee sidelined him repeatedly. He suffered the PCL sprain and bone bruise in Week 1 of 2025, played through three more games at reduced capacity, then missed three straight before returning after Las Vegas' bye week. Late last season, with Las Vegas headed toward a 3-14 finish and the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 draft, the Raiders shut him down for the final two games, a decision made under then-head coach Pete Carroll, who was fired once the season ended. Star edge rusher Maxx Crosby was held out over the same stretch, and both moves drew scrutiny of a coaching staff that had otherwise pushed injured veterans to keep playing earlier in a "win-now" stretch that produced little in the standings. The Raiders used that top pick on Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, who opens 2026 as Cousins' backup.

Klint Kubiak, hired in February after serving as offensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks' 2025 Super Bowl-winning team, is handling his first injury controversy as a head coach. Days before the surgery became public, Kubiak had said he expected every player available for the opener. Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer, discussing the injury on a national radio program, noted that Bowers' knee has shown wear dating back to his time at Georgia, adding that the mileage on a player just three years into his career "gets your attention."

"The one-to-two-week projection is coming, essentially from people around him. Him and people around him. That's what they believe," Adam Schefter said of the shorter recovery timetable that has circulated around Bowers.

What comes next

Mayer takes the field Sunday in place of the player he has backed up since Bowers arrived in 2024, with quarterback Kirk Cousins, the veteran named Las Vegas' starter over rookie Fernando Mendoza to open 2026, leaning on a receiver room already without a clear No. 1 option in Tre Tucker and second-year wideout Jack Bech. Running back Ashton Jeanty, the No. 6 overall pick in last year's draft out of Boise State who managed an ankle injury of his own through the week, was a full practice participant and carries no game designation, so the ground game should carry its usual weight even as the passing attack adjusts.

The Raiders then travel to face the Los Angeles Chargers in a Monday night matchup in Week 2, a stretch that coverage of the team, including an analysis published Friday, has framed as an early test of how the new coaching staff manages a marquee player's recovery after last year's late-season shutdowns drew criticism. The Raiders and their fans are left, for now, to reconcile the "game or two" absence originally reported for Bowers with the four-to-six-week window outside experts consider more realistic for a meniscus procedure on a knee already carrying wear, even as the team's long-term answer at tight end just got $45 million more secure heading into Sunday's opener.