A-
Las Vegas Raiders
Larceny in the Round 5 slot lands the Raiders a A-, Campbell and all.
by MIKE ·
2025 NFL Draft
· 10 picks
· 10 steals
· 0 reaches
Every so often the board makes a mistake, and the Raiders were there to profit. Jihaad Campbell, the No. 39 name on the board, should have been long gone before the 144th overall pick. The sum of the weekend is a deserved A-.
They won the margins on every swap, and it adds up fast. For all the activity, edge rusher went untouched, which is hard to explain.
Add it up and this is about as clean as a draft weekend gets.
Pick-by-Pick
In slot 14 they get an island corner, and a steal at that. Exactly the need they had to hit.
They barely believed it either: Ashton Jeanty still on the board at pick No. 37. Another box on the needs board, quietly ticked.
Cam Ward in the Round 2 slot is the kind of fall that makes a whole class. It patches a soft spot without any drama.
They robbed the room for Jahdae Barron here, a fall nobody at the table saw coming. They walked in needing this and walked out with it.
You do not let an interior defensive lineman like Walter Nolen reach pick 68 and blink. They did not. The roster fit checks out.
Grey Zabel at No. 73 is daylight robbery; nobody expected him to last. The biggest hole on the depth chart just got a whole lot smaller.
A top-tier linebacker at a bargain, Jalon Walker in Round 4, Pick 6, plain and simple. A quiet depth add at a thin-ish spot.
Circle this one: Kenneth Grant at the 110th pick is a fall that decides a draft. It fills a real need, too.
Wyatt Milum at the 116th overall pick is the steal of the weekend, a first-round talent at a bargain-bin price. Better still, it is exactly the hole they had to fill.
They will replay Jihaad Campbell at slot 144 for years; that is how good the value is. They added to a strength when a need was still open elsewhere.