B-
Las Vegas Raiders
The Raiders finally solved quarterback, and it carried them to a B-.
by 100 ·
2025 NFL Draft
· 10 picks
· 4 steals
· 5 reaches
You build a draft on nights like this. Chris Paul Jr. had no business being available in the 216th overall pick, and the Raiders did the only sane thing and turned in the card.
The cost of the Uiagalelei reach is exactly the players who went right after him. They have staked the next five years on Shedeur Sanders, which is the only story that really matters here. A whole weekend of picks and wide receiver is somehow still a want.
Bottom line, more hits than misses and a roster nudged the right way.
Pick-by-Pick
Shedeur Sanders at slot 2 is neither steal nor reach, just the going rate. A need, and now a little less of one.
Charles Grant in Round 2, Pick 1 is a bet on their own eyes over everyone else's grade. It answers the question that was keeping the coaches up at night.
Tacario Davis at the Round 3 slot is the kind of overdraft that needs everything to break right. Better still, it is exactly the hole they had to fill.
You do not let an edge rusher like Jack Sawyer reach No. 71 and blink. They did not. That was the need underlined and circled, and now it is checked off.
They reached a country mile for Jake Majors at the 103rd pick, and the board is aghast. A must-fix position, and they treated it like one.
Somehow Jared Ivey was still sitting there in pick No. 139, and they pounced on premier edge rusher value. The biggest hole on the depth chart just got a whole lot smaller.
Clay Webb in slot 179 is a reach so steep the board needed a second look to believe it. The one spot they could not leave alone, and did not.
They reached into another round for DJ Uiagalelei, and the board is nowhere close to agreeing. One more legitimate question on the roster, answered.
Taking Chris Paul Jr. in pick 216 is close to grand larceny; a linebacker that good had no business lasting this long. Useful depth more than a marquee fix.
David Walker in the 218th overall pick should not have been possible, and that is the whole point. It is more luxury than necessity; they were already set here.