The Las Vegas Raiders are one of many first main wild playing cards within the 2025 NFL Draft, which begins on April 24 in Inexperienced Bay. In typical Raiders style, there isn’t any actual consensus on what they may do with their No. 6 general choose, however there are a number of intriguing choices for them.
A quarterback, particularly Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, may very well be in play as a long-term choose to take a seat behind veteran Geno Smith for a few years.
They’ve main wants throughout their roster.
However the way more probably, and maybe way more intriguing, possibility is Boise State working again Ashton Jeanty.
The Raiders have been the favorites to land the highest working again prospect, and on Friday normal supervisor John Spytek was requested about the potential of taking him on the high of the draft, per NFL.com’s Grant Gordon.
Earlier than he may even reply, head coach Pete Carroll instructed him to “watch out.”
Spytek then talked concerning the significance of including elite gamers and drew a comparability to Saquon Barkley’s affect on the Philadelphia Eagles.
“I am gonna watch out about speaking about any particular participant. However, extra broadly to the working again query, I imply, we simply noticed Saquon Barkley simply change the Eagles in a single 12 months. Now they’d an amazing crew round him, and it was including an elite participant. I feel if you sit the place we sit, the thought is so as to add elite gamers at any place. I do not attempt to devalue any sure place.”
The Jeanty choose goes to be a sophisticated one for no matter crew finally ends up taking him within the first spherical.
He’s surely one of the crucial proficient gamers within the draft, one of the best at his place and was a completely dominant participant in school. There are loads of issues to love about him, and he can completely change an offense and a crew if all the things goes in line with plan.
The bottom line is it needs to be the proper crew and the proper offense.
The Barkley comparability truly provides fairly a cautionary story for a crew just like the Raiders, and Spytek even unintentionally talked about it in his reply: The Eagles already “had an amazing crew round him.”
Barkley was additionally signed as a free agent. The Eagles didn’t have to make use of a top-10 choose so as to add him into their group.
He was the ultimate piece of their Tremendous Bowl puzzle, not one of many beginning items.
One of many largest causes the working again place grew to become so devalued lately wasn’t simply due to how brief their careers are. It’s also due to how dependent their manufacturing and affect is on the crew and scenario round them. They want an amazing line, a robust passing sport and a superb system for all the things to click on.
Barkley had none of that when he performed for the New York Giants after they chose him with a No. 2 general choose. As a substitute of getting him be the ultimate piece of their offense, he was the piece they tried to construct round. And whereas Barkley had some particular person success, it was not the identical as he skilled in Philadelphia. The crew success was nowhere near the identical. It was not as a result of he was totally different. The scenario was totally different.
It’s a related story with the newest working again to be picked within the high 10, Atlanta Falcons working again Bijan Robinson. He’s nice, dynamic and makes loads of performs. However remainder of the Falcons offense is so flawed that it has not but made a big impact on their offense or their crew success.
Jeanty may very well be a steal and speedy affect participant for any person within the first spherical. But it surely needs to be a crew that already has many of the different core gamers in place.
Are the Raiders that crew? There needs to be some doubt about that, and the Raiders want to concentrate on that.
