The Raiders and the 2024 NFL Draft
What I think the Silver and Black should do in this year's NFL Draft.
It’s the beginning of a strange offseason for the Raiders. On the one hand, they were able to rescue what was looking like another lost season in 2023 and end it on a positive note with their improved play under now-full time head coach Antonio Pierce. But it was also a season where they didn’t make the playoffs, they struggled a great deal, and questions remain about how the team will be able to compete in a tough AFC.
Whatever improvements the Raiders can make start with the NFL Draft, in which the Raiders pick 13th in the first round. That will be the place where they can find the player who could have the biggest impact on what the 2024 Raiders team looks like.
Taking a look at the board, here are the choices I see ahead for new GM Tom Telesco and the Silver and Black in the 2024 NFL Draft.
Strengthen the lines
The key to football are the trenches: the offensive and defensive lines. The teams that win, no matter their offensive or defensive gameplans, are strong at those points. There’s a line of thinking that if there’s not an obvious skill player to select, you should draft someone along one of the lines and develop them. Though I’m all for bucking the trends and not doing what everyone else does; there’s certainly a logic to that. Because the Raiders are in this mid-first round spot, where there’s a bit of a drop off in terms of the players available, that might be the way to go.
Specifically, a defensive lineman like Illinois’ Jer'Zhan Newton or Texas’ Byron Murphy seem like players who might still be available and would provide Maxx Crosby with some help on defense. The Raiders ended the season with a top-ten defense according to ProFootballFocus, but that doesn’t mean the Raiders should get complacent.
If the Raiders look to the other side of the ball, offensive linemen like JC Latham and Taliese Fuaga might still be on the board come time when the Raiders pick and they could use an injection of talent into the offensive line. But I think the players that will be available on the defensive line will be less of a reach and that they should look to trade back a few spots if they go the offensive line route.
Load up on Skill Players
The Raiders’ offense was mediocre at best and awful at worst last season. While some of that comes down to quarterback play (which I’ll talk about shortly), they also need to look at other ways to improve their offensive attack. This draft has some great receiver prospects in it, and perhaps the Raiders attempt to jump start their offense by selecting one of them.
If Rome Odunze or Malik Nabers slip down the draft board, the Raiders might elect to go with one of them to pair with Davante Adams and Jakobi Meyers to open up the passing game. I’d argue Odunze is the best receiver who could conceivably be available when the Raiders make their pick.
You could also see the Raiders grabbing one of those low-first/early-second round wide receivers, like an Xavier Worthy or Adonai Mitchell, with their second round selection. I’m biased as a Texas fan when it comes to those two receivers and thinking about their professional prospects, but that might be the way to go if the Raiders don’t want to use that first round pick but do want to get some more young talent into their WR room.
I’m not as enamored with this path, just as I’m not on board with going after a defensive back (Terrion Arnold, for example). Drafting a defensive back that early, even in the mid-first round, is a bit of a crap shoot. The Raiders can’t afford to gamble with this pick, so they need to make sure they pick someone who’s going to be a real contributor.
Get the New Quarterback
This is where the the Raiders have struggled, starting with the tail end of the Derek Carr years and through the Jimmy G/Aidan O’Connell combo. Unfortunately, their mid-first-round draft pick will make it tough to get one of the marquee prospects at the top of the draft like Caleb Williams and Drake Maye or Jayden Daniels. It will take quite a haul of future assets to move up that far, and I just don’t know if those quarterbacks are worth that much future capital.
But even if the Raiders don’t trade up, I think there are still some options worth considering as long as they think that player can be a game changer.
I’m not a fan of Bo Nix or J.J. McCarthy as pro quarterbacks. I think they could be good-to-very-good if put in the right situation, but I don’t think they’ll be able to do well in the Raiders situation right now and I don’t think they’ll be able to do enough to help improve that situation.
The Raiders need that game changer, someone who can flip the script, and that’s why I’m more intrigued by Michael Penix Jr. out of Washington. He has that game-changing ability, both in terms of his athleticism and his ability to make the deep throw.
There are questions about him. Many more than you see for the top ranked quarterbacks. Thus, you see him lower on the big boards of the experts. Does his game translate to the NFL? Can he handle the defenses he’ll face in the NFL? How will he hold up? Writing about his stellar performance in the Sugar Bowl, SB Nation’s Mark Schofield notes:
[H]e does face questions beyond his ability to play in the face of pressure. Penix is an older prospect, set to turn 24 days after the 2024 NFL Draft. He has also endured multiple knee injuries, and each of his four seasons at Indiana were cut short due to major injuries. He suffered season-ending ACL injuries in 2018 and 2020, and season-ending shoulder injuries in 2019 and 2021.
Past that critical health variable, though, there are on-field reasons teams could balk. Penix falls away in the face of pressure at times, which makes his accuracy erratic. We saw an example of that in the Pac-12 championship against Oregon, when he sailed a pass over the head of his receiver, leading to a pick. As Nate Tice points out, Penix’s numbers throwing into the intermediate middle area of the field are concerning. He relies heavily on short passes and screens to the outside, which help set up deep bombs down the field. If he’s not comfortable attacking that huge swath in the middle of the field, defenses at the next level will make his life difficult. And, of course, he’ll face level-of-competition questions from playing in the Pac-12, and he could be downgraded for perceived number juicing that results from playing with an outstanding supporting cast.
While there are these questions, as Kelly notes, there are also tremendous aspects of Penix’s game that make him a fascinating prospect: his ability to throw the deep ball, his ability to avoid turnovers, his ability to make quick reads and find the open receiver, his ability to avoid sacks.
If there are these questions and he’s lower on the consensus draft boards, maybe Penix is a player you could move up at the beginning of the second round or end of the first round to go get? I mean, Lamar Jackson wasn’t taken at the top of the draft but at the end of the first round. Maybe that’s the model. Yes, you’d have to give up some future capital, but not as much to move up to the top of the draft and you would be getting a guy who certainly has as much upside as those quarterbacks expected to go early in the NFL Draft.
Trevor Sikkema’s latest mock draft for ProFootballFocus paints an ideal scenario for the Raiders in which they use the 13th pick to draft Murphy from Texas (which I, a Texas alum, would absolutely love) and then trading up to the top of the second round to draft Penix.
If the Raiders are going to get a QB in this draft AND they’re not going to try to move into the top 3 (which I don’t think they should do as it would take a ton of draft capital), I think Penix is the only one worth getting. If he falls into that end of first/beginning of second round range, I think he would be a great pick for the Raiders even if they have to move up and give up some assets to get him. Honestly, if the Raiders like and want to take him with their first-round pick, I wouldn’t be mad at it. They just NEED to be sure Penix is their guy and those flaws in his game are things either they can address or they can overcome.