The NFL Draft has come and gone, but the stories from that weekend are starting to leak out and they can tell a whole lot about what a team thinks about their draft.
For the Raiders, it is now becoming obvious that Henry Ruggs III was their ideal target at No. 12. Not only was he the first receiver drafted, but the Raiders actually had a chance to move down two spots and pick up three extra selections to do so, according to a recent piece by NBC Sports’ Peter King:
“Licht takes a moment. Raiders on the clock. Should he up the offer? Yes. He will. He calls Mayock and offers three, five and six while getting a three back. “Okay. Okay. Thanks Mike.” Licht hangs up and tells the Cisco group: “Doesn’t matter what we offer. They’re staying.”
By all accounts, the Buccaneers (who held pick No. 14), were trying to move up in the draft to acquire Iowa offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs. Tampa Bay sat tight and landed him anyway at their original selection, but it’s fascinating that the Raiders didn’t want to move back two spots despite having all three wide receivers available to them.
The belief was that they were afraid that the 49ers (or any other team via trade) would move ahead of them at pick No. 14 to select Ruggs. Rather than chance it, the Raiders stayed at the No. 12 pick and selected the speedy receiver from Alabama.
Essentially, the Raiders told us that they valued Henry Ruggs more than CeeDee Lamb/Jerry Jeudy + picks No. 161 and No. 194 (along with a third-round pick swap). That tells us that there was likely a pretty big gap on their board between Ruggs and the rest of the receivers in this class.
The Raiders wanted to come out of this draft with Ruggs on their roster and they stuck to their board. That kind of conviction is what you want to see from the team’s front office. It will be fascinating to see if the made the right decision for their franchise.
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