Last offseason, the Eagles placed cornerback Daryl Worley on waivers after he was arrested less than a month after they acquired him. Worley cleared waivers, meaning no team in the league wanted him, even at a league-minimum salary. There was no market for him at all.

The Raiders later signed him to a one-year deal, and he played fairly well for them last year — after serving a four-game suspension and before landing on injured reserve. But Worley did not play so well that it justifies the Raiders’ odd decision to put a second-round tender on him today.

Worley is a restricted free agent, which means the Raiders just had to tender him for the right to match any offer he received, and get draft-pick compensation from a team that signed him if they chose not to match the offer. If the Raiders had put the original-round tender on Worley, they would have received a third-round draft pick from a team that signed him away. That would have been a great deal, a third-round pick for a player they got for free off waivers last year — and if they didn’t think it was a great deal, they could have just matched whatever offer Worley got. An original-round tender was all they had to put on Worley.

But for some reason, the Raiders put a second-round tender on Worley. That means they’re going to have to pay him $1 million more this season than they would have had to pay him on an original-round tender. The only reason it makes an sense to tender him at the second-round level is if they thought some team would have signed him away at the lower tender. And it’s very, very hard to imagine that would have happened.

The Raiders’ front office has made quite a few questionable decisions since Jon Gruden took over last year. This is another one. It’s great for Worley that he’ll make $1 million more than he otherwise would have, but it’s hard to understand why the Raiders, with so many holes at so many positions, were willing to throw away $1 million worth of cap space.