Raiders now know where their stockpile of draft picks fall — what will they do with them?
The homeless Raiders may not know where they’ll play football in 2019. But they do know where they’ll draft.
The Raiders famously cleaned house this season in the first year of Jon Gruden’s return, most notably sending pass rusher Khalil Mack to the Chicago Bears and wide receiver Amari Cooper to the Dallas Cowboys.
They received first-round draft picks in return while watching Mack and Cooper become dramatic difference-makers on a pair of playoff teams.
Raiders’ first-round draft position
With the Cowboys having been eliminated a week after the Bears, the Raiders now know exactly what the fruits of those trade will yield in 2019.
In addition to securing the No. 4 pick in April’s draft of their own, they’ll have the No. 24 pick of the Bears and the No. 27 pick of the Cowboys after the Rams beat them on Saturday.
Not the value they anticipated
While having three picks anywhere in the first round is an envious draft position, this can’t be what the Raiders envisioned when they jettisoned their most talented players. Neither the Bears nor the Cowboys looked like playoff locks when the deals were done.
But the addition of the former Raiders made each team significantly better and, as a result, the value of those draft picks became that much worse.
The Mack trade also yielded the Bears’ first- and third-round picks in 2020 and their sixth-round pick this season. So true judgment of how that trade works out for the Raiders will have to wait.
Raiders draft needs
As for what the Raiders will seek with their bounty of picks in the upcoming draft? Well, they’ll need to address the pass rush and receiving corps for obvious reasons.
The Oakland pass rush was putrid this season, with the team logging a league-worst 13 sacks. They truly were in a class of their own, with the next-worst pass rushes of the New England Patriots and New York Giants yielding 30 sacks each.
By comparison, Mack logged 12.5 sacks of his own as the Bears finished third in the league with 50 sacks.
The Raiders receiving corps is one of the worst in the league after the departure of Cooper. Tight end Jared Cook led the team in receiving with 896 yards while running back Jalen Richard finished third with 607 yards. A well-past-his-prime 33-year-old Jordy Nelson was the leading wide receiver on the team, trailing Cook with 739 receiving yards.
Cooper, who played six games before being traded, was the team’s third-most productive wide receiver with 280 yards.
So yeah, that position needs a significant upgrade.
Other positions the Raiders will likely consider addressing include running back, safety and linebacker.
Would they look at quarterbacks?
And don’t be surprised if the Raiders make a splash at quarterback. Gruden’s clearly intent on building the Raiders in his image, and Derek Carr seems a likely candidate to be shipped off as well if the team can find a trade partner willing to take on his massive contract.
This year’s draft is considered a down year for quarterbacks, so 2020 may be the target on that front if Carr is indeed on the outs.
Raiders fans who have stuck with their team despite the imminent departure from Oakland suffered through a miserable 2018.
Now it’s time for them to cash in on the hope that comes with their bounty of draft picks. Whether they can trust Gruden to get it right seems a dubious proposition.
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