D
Las Vegas Raiders
The Raiders let Taylor fall and pounced. Final grade: D.
by BeastOnTheGrid ·
2025 NFL Draft
· 12 picks
· 6 steals
· 4 reaches
The value of the weekend has a name and a slot: Mason Taylor, slot 212, roughly 113 picks past where he belonged.
They are betting Beck proves the room right and everyone else wrong. They lost the exchange badly enough to drag the whole class down.
The edge rusher hole is the one line item this class does not answer.
Add it up and it is a weekend the front office will hope everyone forgets, edge rusher very much included.
Pick-by-Pick
In the Round 1 slot they get a go-to option on the outside at fair value. It fills the loudest need on the roster.
A reach on Benjamin Morrison in pick No. 37; the board had better options right there. The one spot they could not leave alone, and did not.
A big swing on Carson Beck at the 73rd overall pick, well ahead of any board in the building. It shores up a spot that genuinely needed the help.
They reached into another round for Kurtis Rourke, and the board is nowhere close to agreeing. The roster fit checks out.
Jordan James in Round 4, Pick 6 should not have been possible, and that is the whole point. It plugs a real leak on the depth chart.
Smael Mondon Jr. at the 138th pick is daylight robbery; nobody expected him to last. It thickens a room that could stand to be thicker.
Deontae Lawson at pick 142 is the steal of the weekend, a first-round talent at a bargain-bin price. Pure best-available; the position was not exactly begging.
Nicholas Singleton at slot 163 is a first-round grade at a bargain-bin price, no notes. Another box on the needs board, quietly ticked.
Value said wait; DJ Campbell in the 179th overall pick says they were not listening. That was the need underlined and circled, and now it is checked off.
A top-tier tight end at a bargain, Mason Taylor in pick 212, plain and simple. A sensible fit that makes the depth chart a little sturdier.
Taking Sonny Styles in pick No. 216 is close to grand larceny; a safety that good had no business lasting this long. Useful depth more than a marquee fix.
A straight-up fair deal on Clay Webb at No. 222, value and slot in agreement. Better still, it is exactly the hole they had to fill.