Tag: 2022 Raiders draft

Drafting outside top 80 is where Raiders have done some of their best work of late

Today may end up being a bit boring for Raiders fans. But don’t fret; drafting outside the top 80 has been Raiders wheelhouse of late.

Raiders fans have likely become a little spoiled around draft time each year in recent years. When they selected Tre’von Moehrig at 43 overall last year, it was their lowest second pick in any draft since 2018. And in total the team has had a combined eight picks in the top 43 over the past three years.

Those days ended this year in a big way.

This year their first pick won’t come until twice as long as their previous longest wait. They are currently not set to be on the clock until pick 86.

I mentioned that Raiders fans were spoiled around draft time by all these high picks in each draft. But come a year later or two years later, all that giddy anticipation was rarely rewarded.

Of those eight picks, maybe three of them can be called successes — Moehrig, Josh Jacobs, and Trayvon Mullen. The other five are have yet to really arrive or are certain missteps.

There have been some rousing successes for the Raiders, and many of them have occurred right in the range where the Raiders have four picks in this draft.

The Raiders have a total of five picks, with four of them coming in a 90-pick stretch between the third and fifth round.

While that range hasn’t excited many fans in the draft leadup, it certainly has given Raiders fans in particular plenty to cheer for in the months and years after those picks were made.

Here’s the list:

WR Lynn Bowden Jr (80)
LB Divine Deablo (80)
WR Bryan Edwards (81)
LB Tanner Muse (100)
DE Maxx Crosby (104)
G John Simpson (109)
CB Isaiah Johnson (129)
TE Foster Moreau (137)
CB Amik Robertson (139)
S Tyree Gillespie (143)
WR Hunter Renfrow (149)
CB Nate Hobbs (167)

That’s 12 players over the past three drafts. And most of them (7) were either full or part-time starters last season — Deablo, Edwards, Crosby, Simpson, Moreau, Renfrow, and Hobbs.

Getting seven starters in a range between the mid-third round and late fifth round is outstanding. Especially when you consider the likes of star-caliber performers such as Crosby, Renfrow, and Hobbs who were all selected outside the top 100.

Those three drafts, of course, were made under former GM Mike Mayock and coach Jon Gruden. That is understood. But that doesn’t mean Dave Ziegler and Josh McDaniels can’t find success in that range as well. If they can find even one or two starting-caliber players along with the addition of Davante Adams, fans will forget the long wait for their first draft pick.

Just a little positivity to start your draft day festivities.

See who I predict the Raiders will select in my seven-round Raiders mock draft.

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Centers squarely on Raiders draft radar

One of these centers could be just what Raiders need in this year’s draft

With how bad the Raiders’ offensive line was last season at every position but left tackle, it can be easy to overlook the center position. Mainly because right tackle is so crucial to pass protection and there are two guard spots. But make no mistake, the need at the position is considerable.

Andre James was a real question mark as an unproven player being handed the starting job last season after the team traded away Rodney Hudson. And the answer wasn’t a resounding yes. It was more of a ‘told ya so’ from those who weren’t confident in the move, as were the two guys to his right.

But unlike Alex Leatherwood who was selected at 17 overall in last year’s draft, it would be much easier to move on from James should they find an upgrade.

Two other factors that make center a good position to target is you can often find good ones on day two and three and they can often play guard as well, so you can address two positions at once. Those factors are pretty valuable to a team with four picks in the third round and after.

Here are some centers that could come in and immediately compete for the job.

Cornerbacks squarely on Raiders draft radar

Some cornerbacks in next week’s draft who could be just what the Raiders need.

The 5You can never have enough good cornerbacks. Especially in today’s NFL. The Raiders potentially have three starters in Trayvon Mullen, Rock Ya-Sin, and Nate Hobbs. Ya-Sin being the new addition acquired in trade with the Colts for DE Yannick Ngakoue. After that, there are question marks.

There could be a few solid cornerback products available in the latter parts of the draft who would be fine additions to the depth chart for the Raiders.

Dave Ziegler on ‘pressures’ of first draft as Raiders new GM, collaboration with Josh McDaniels

Dave Ziegler is entering his first draft less than three months since being named Raiders GM. Talk about pressure.

It became clear when Mark Davis was looking for the next GM for the Raiders this offseason, he wanted a package deal with the head coach. The hope being that the two of them could come in and instantly be on the same page and therefore hit the ground running. 

Enter former (com)Patriots Dave Ziegler and Josh McDaniels. Two guys who go as far back as 2010 when McDaniels was head coach of the Broncos and Ziegler was hired as a player personnel assistant. The two were reunited in New England with Ziegler hired on a personnel assistant with McDaniels having gotten his job back as Patriots offensive coordinator. 

McDaniels kept that job the past ten years while Ziegler worked his way up the front office ranks. So, you could say they are pretty familiar with each other. It makes for a lot of agreement on prospects during the draft process.

“Typically we see players the same,” Ziegler said of McDaniels Wednesday in the GM’s pre-draft press conference. “Like if we end up watching players separately, we’re going to come back and I would say the vast majority of those players we’ll see the same. There’s always going to be some one-offs here and there where we just see it differently and those are the guys where we end up sitting down and working through a little bit more throughout the process to try and find some common ground and learn why we saw those players differently. But for the most part, yeah, we see a lot of things the same when it comes to evaluating players. We talked about our scouting system before but we look at players and the role that they’re going to fill and so often we see those players and what the role is the same.”

This symbiotic relationship is important because the Raiders are in the somewhat unique position of overhauling the coaching staff and front office following a season in which they made the playoffs. So, unlike most teams in this situation, they aren’t looking to start over from scratch and rebuild. They think they can continue winning and hope to do so with the help of the Raiders draft this offseason.

The familiarity between coach and GM removes one possible stumbling block, but there’s a lot more to the job than that. 

Ziegler and McDaniels entered the building at the beginning of February needing to build an entire new coaching staff, personnel department, and front office while simultaneously scouting potential free agents and draft prospects. That’s just over a month to free agency, and less than three months to the draft. That’s a lot to have on his plate all at once.

“The new pressures I think center around running the entire organization in terms of the scouting and personnel side,” Ziegler said. “And, so there’s that pressure. And I would say the pressure of developing your philosophy, developing your scouts, getting everybody trained and ingrained on how you want to approach not just the draft, but everything. The draft, scouting in general, our grading scale, when we work out players how we want to handle player workouts, all these individual things that you want to make perfect right now that you can’t make perfect right now because you have other things become a higher priority. 

“I’m always thinking about the here and the now, what we have to do now to be as well prepared for the draft. But then you are always thinking about these things that are on the peripheral about how we’re going to develop scouts, all the things we want to accomplish from May to June, how we’re going to organize the preseason process, we have to get our advanced scouting reports in order. 

“You know, so there’s all these things that you want to check off your list that you can’t check off your list. So, there’s a level of stress. Not bad stress, just good stress of wanting to attack all these other things but focus on the here and now. . . We embrace that pressure, we enjoy it, it’s part of the allure of this profession for a lot of people that get into it. You thrive on it and you want that pressure because it’s exciting.”

Oh, and the draft is being held in Las Vegas this year too. No pressure, Dave.

GM of an NFL team is certainly a position a lot of people would love to have. Though probably not an enviable level of work that is needed at this particular moment.