B+
Las Vegas Raiders
The Raiders robbed the room for Driskell. Final grade: B+.
by Daytona Gold ·
2024 NFL Draft
· 10 picks
· 2 steals
· 4 reaches
Somebody in No. 221 was going to get robbed, and it turned out to be the rest of the league. The Raiders sat still while Ethan Driskell, the No. 192 name on the board, slid all the way to them, then sprinted to the podium. Good, not great, and the B+ says as much.
Reaching for Jackson left real value on the table behind him. A whole weekend of picks and tight end is somehow still a want. The imported veterans give this class a floor the draft picks could not on their own.
Edge rusher was the priority and it is no longer a question, which is most of the job.
All told, a draft that does its job without fuss, and there is real value in that.
Pick-by-Pick
No drama and no debate, J.J. McCarthy went about where he belonged in pick 38. The roster fit checks out.
Gabriel Murphy at slot 58 is a steep price for a hunch, hard to square with any board. Better still, it is exactly the hole they had to fill.
Value said wait; Khyree Jackson in No. 77 says they were not listening. They walked in needing this and walked out with it.
A reach for Darius Robinson in Round 4, Pick 13; a little patience would have been rewarded. It answers the question that was keeping the coaches up at night.
A market-rate cornerback, with the board and the slot shaking hands on Nehemiah Pritchett. This was priority one on the needs board, and now it is handled.
Javon Baker in the 190th overall pick lands just on the right side of the ledger. A glaring weakness, addressed head on.
Michael Wiley at the Round 6 slot is a sound buy, the sort that quietly helps a class. It fills a real need, too.
Circle this one: Ethan Driskell at pick No. 221 is a fall that decides a draft. A must-fix position, and they treated it like one.
A reach on Darius Muasau in the 225th overall pick; the board had better options right there. Useful body for a position without much behind the starter.
They robbed the room for Isaiah Williams here, a fall nobody at the table saw coming. The biggest hole on the depth chart just got a whole lot smaller.