Every GM touts ‘Best Player Available’ regardless of position coming into a draft. And it’s extremely rare to actually stay true to those words. Often times it’s downright unwise to stay true to that when you have glaring needs on your football team to consider.
Raiders GM Tom Telesco spoke this past week about that concept. He said essentially that team needs isn’t really relevant because needs can change quickly. To prove his point, he told the story of when the Chargers drafted Keenan Allen out of Cal when wide receiver wasn’t a need only to have some injuries thrust Allen into the starting lineup where he earned Rookie of the Year honors.
The story was great and all, but taken with a grain of salt. First of all, Allen was a third round pick, so it’s not nearly the same as ignoring need in the first round. More importantly, we’re still talking, again, about a concept that sounds great in theory, but is usually hard — and sometimes downright unwise — to follow in actual practice. After all, teams want to get better right now and loading up at already strong positions doesn’t often help them do that.
But I suppose credit it due to Telesco for staying true to his words with his first ever pick as Raiders GM.
When the Raiders pick came up at 13, they shocked a lot of people — including myself — who saw some talented players on the board who were at positions of need and took tight end Brock Bowers instead.
“You try and stick to [best player available] when you can,” said Telesco. “It’s harder than you think sometimes because you’re adding to the football team, and we know where we are today. We are looking for today and the future. But a player like Brock, just the scouting staff, where they have him, what they thought about him, what the coaching staff thought. He’s really a pretty consensus guy.”
Understandable that Bowers would be a consensus guy. He was a consensus All American at tight end last season. His third consecutive season making First Team All American and second straight season as the Mackey Award Winner. And he’s just a Junior.
Bowers said he was shocked by his selection by the Raiders. And that shock was shared by most everyone else by that pick. That’s because they add Bowers to a team that already has Michael Mayer who the Raiders traded up to select at 35 overall in last year’s draft, and Harrison Bryant who was one of the teams few free agent signings this offseason.
This, of course, makes one wonder if perhaps Telesco and the Raiders new offensive staff aren’t high on Mayer. But he insisted that wasn’t it.
“We love Michael Mayer. I love Michael Mayer. He’s a really good player, He’s going to take another big jump this year,” Telesco added. “But we had a chance to add another dimension to the offense, whether it’s tight end, hybrid receiver, whatever it is. We need more playmakers on that side of the ball, so he’s going to help us there. High level player in college, true junior, very young, still developing, but he’s got some natural football skills combined with some high level athletic ability and speed.”
What it also means is the Raiders still have the same glaring needs at quarterback, offensive tackle, and cornerback that they had coming into the night.
The quarterback situation was mostly taken out of their hands, with six of them coming off the board in the first 12 picks before the Raiders selected. But that left them with the likes of tackle Taliese Fuaga and their choice of all the cornerbacks because none had been taken. In fact they had their choice of any defensive player in the draft because none had been taken at that point.
What they will hope now is a first round level talent at one of those positions is there at 44 or perhaps at a spot they can trade up to should they want to do so.