B
Las Vegas Raiders
The Raiders let Smith fall and pounced. Final grade: B.
by DYRTI ·
2025 NFL Draft
· 11 picks
· 10 steals
· 0 reaches
Somebody in pick No. 170 was going to get robbed, and it turned out to be the rest of the league. The Raiders sat still while Brashard Smith, the No. 111 name on the board, slid all the way to them, then sprinted to the podium. Good, not great, and the B says as much.
They covered a lot of ground and still skipped edge rusher, which is a strange place to end up. The roster is better shaped than it was, with cornerback chief among the fixes.
They came away with juice, if not much beef up front.
Good work on the whole, with edge rusher the one box left unchecked.
Pick-by-Pick
In slot 6 they get a workhorse for the backfield. A real need, handled.
The board had Malaki Starks higher than No. 37, and the safety fell to them anyway. Useful body for a position without much behind the starter.
They will replay Ozzy Trapilo at the Round 4 slot for years; that is how good the value is. It also answers one of the loudest questions on the roster.
Circle this one: Denzel Burke at the 109th pick is a fall that decides a draft. A glaring weakness, addressed head on.
The board fumbled Jared Wilson all the way to the 132nd overall pick, and they scooped it up. That was the need underlined and circled, and now it is checked off.
Will Howard in pick 143 is a gift, value that borders on unfair. It plugs a real leak on the depth chart.
Brashard Smith at pick No. 170 is daylight robbery; nobody expected him to last. A sensible fit for a spot that needed help.
Dorian Strong at Round 6, Pick 4 is the sort of value that quietly wins a weekend. The one spot they could not leave alone, and did not.
You do not let a safety like Jaylen Reed reach pick No. 213 and blink. They did not. A want dressed up as a pick, at a spot they had covered.
KeAndre Lambert-Smith in the 215th pick should not have been possible, and that is the whole point. This was priority one on the needs board, and now it is handled.
A wide receiver of that caliber at the 222nd overall pick is the definition of value, full stop. Better still, it is exactly the hole they had to fill.