Six quarterbacks going in this draft’s first 12 picks left the Raiders in limbo, setting up a Gardner Minshew–Aidan O’Connell competition. For a second straight year, the team did extensive work on a QB class only to pass on making a move to select one in Round 1.
The Josh McDaniels–Dave Ziegler power duo arranged meetings with last year’s top five QB prospects, only to stay at No. 7 and draft Tyree Wilson. This year, as a report tabbed Antonio Pierce as more eager to trade up compared to GM Tom Telesco, the Raiders were closely linked to Jayden Daniels and Michael Penix Jr. Daniels proved out of reach, despite the team being the club that most likely sent the Commanders the only offer for No. 2 overall, and Penix came off the board earlier than expected.
The Falcons’ move at No. 8 affected multiple franchises. It convinced the Broncos to stop entertaining trade-down scenarios involving Bo Nix, as the Raiders loomed at No. 13. With Nix going at No. 12, the move also will likely precede a number of Raiders connections to 2025 QB prospects. The Raiders placed a value gap between this year’s top three QBs (Daniels, Caleb Williams, Drake Maye) and the other three first-rounders, and ESPN.com’s Jeremy Fowler furthers that view by indicating the team would have considered Penix at No. 13 but was not prepared to trade up for him.
Las Vegas also viewed a trade-down option as viable for Penix, with Fowler indicating the team did not want to reach in Round 1. Trading down quickly became moot for the Raiders, as the Falcons installed Penix behind Kirk Cousins. Sean Payton correctly pegged the Vikings as being J.J. McCarthy fans, as the team moved in front of the Broncos (via the Jets) for the Michigan product, and the Raiders as being high on Penix. With the southpaw prospect in Atlanta, Las Vegas has what appears to be a transition year ahead.
Penix’s early NFL path would have certainly been much different had the Raiders deemed it a priority to come out of Round 1 with a quarterback. Rather than being on track to join Jordan Love as the only first-round QBs in the rookie-scale contract era (2011-present) to sit for more than one season, Penix almost definitely would have been set to debut in 2024 had the Raiders picked him. The six-year college QB joins Nix and Daniels as going into his age-24 season, but with $100MM in practical guarantees due to Cousins, Penix’s QB1 ETA may not be until at least his age-26 season.
A “best player available”-type pick transpired instead for the Raiders, who took Brock Bowers. Pierce denied Terrion Arnold‘s assertion the team flipped a coin to decide between the Alabama cornerback and Georgia tight end, who will follow 2023 second-round pick Michael Mayer to Vegas. Bowers will be expected to become an instant contributor, creating an interesting setup for Mayer — last year’s No. 35 overall pick.
The Raiders did not need to trade up for Will Levis last year, as the Kentucky prospect tumbled out of Round 1, but were not as interested in passers as their “30” visit log suggested. A year after that smokescreen effort, Las Vegas did meet with Penix, Daniels and Nix. But the team’s long-term QB need remains unfilled.
This represents good news for Minshew, who will be the favorite to start — based on the two-year, $25MM ($15MM guaranteed) deal he agreed to hours into the legal tampering period — in 2024. By 2025, however, the Raiders should be expected to go through another exhaustive run of QB research.
Must suck to suck unless gruden your coach change my mind…
Sweet sentence composition, bro. Jesus
I couldn’t understand a word of it.
Afger Gruden left, they went 7-5 under a special teams coach and made the playoffs. Mind changed?
Minshew and O’Connell are not that bad of a QB pairing. The Raiders mistake was thinking a 9-8 record would sneak them into the playoffs last season. Had they lost their final game to the Broncos they would have been better positioned in the draft to make a move for a QB.
Well if they lost a game or two more AP wouldn’t be the coach so pick your poison. Coaches & players want to earn contracts, they don’t care about tanking.
Well said. This hindsight thought pattern around ‘lose one more game and x, y, z happens in the draft’ because tanking for the draft is guaranteed to turn your franchise around is some of the worst Monday morning QB commentary. Annoying comments by ill educated kids.
Truth be told, there are a lot of wild thought patterns floating around in the NFL. We may think they are badly flawed or even annoying but that doesn’t mean owners and GMs don’t consider all scenarios that might possibly benefit them in some way.
With the way we were playing, there is a -0- chance I’d tank a game. This is the first sign of life I’ve seen in about 20 years.
So, you could say the Raiders tricked the Broncos into taking him. They Paytoned Payton. That’s gotta be a blow to Payton’s incredibly large ego.
It probably has more to do with them not having a second round pick than fear the raiders specifically would take him at 13. Don’t forget Seahawks and Rams were also interested in developmental qbs.
By this logic. The Falcons falconned themselves.
The broncos were going to take nix regardless, the broncos smoke screened the Vikings into moving up for McCarthy. And from all the new reports and leaks out, was the right call. The medias been clamoring over Williams, Daniels and nix looking great, while maye and McCarthy have reported looked pretty poor. This is the problem with everyone listening to these so called draft guru’s. How much did we hear about how great Zach Wilson, Malik Willis, Trey Lance, Mitch Trubisky etc were going to be great.
This is one of the most word salad articles that I have ever read. Was there a word limit you were trying to hit?
What do you mean they were not prepared to trade up for Penix? There is no evidence that points to them even valuing him at #13 as most of the NFL didn’t value him at that level. By all accounts, no team in the league valued him at a top 10 pick which is why Atlanta taking him at #8 was so dumbfounding. He was a reach at #13, just like Nix is a reach at #12 and Penix was a tremendous reach at #8.
Truly a poorly informed article.
Maybe just poorly written. I think they should’ve written “had no intention of trading up for Penix”. Writing that they were not prepared suggests that they were taken by surprise, or otherwise would’ve traded up.
I think 31 other teams were “unprepared” to trade up to #8 for Penix.
“What do you mean they were not prepared to trade up for Penix? There is no evidence that points to them even valuing him at #13 as most of the NFL didn’t value him at that level”
How do you know this? The league would almost certainly dispute this characterization considering the number of articles/discussion that crept up in the final week suggesting Penix was going higher than people thought. Jeremiah had him in the top 13 (and he’s probably the most well-connected insider), Eisen guaranteed he was going much higher than the industry thought, even Miller seemed to be buying into the notion he would go in the first half of round 1, and it didn’t stop there but I’m not going to pull every receipt.
Maybe no team valued him top 10, however teams clearly valued him highly enough to force ATL to stick and pick instead of trading down first. It became pretty apparent right before the draft that the league as a whole valued Penix more highly than McCarthy, so this whole “reach” nonsense (which few people are suggesting but still) is silly because you have exactly zero idea how other NFL teams valued him other than to listen to insiders, many of whom are suggesting the opposite of your opinion.
To me, that doesn’t sound like a misinformed article, it sounds like you didn’t do enough homework leading up to the draft to warrant being able to make this claim.
“What do you mean they were not prepared to trade up for Penix? There is no evidence that points to them even valuing him at #13 as most of the NFL didn’t value him at that level”
How do you know this? The league would almost certainly dispute this characterization considering the number of articles/discussion that crept up in the final week suggesting Penix was going higher than people thought. Jeremiah had him in the top 13 (and he’s probably the most well-connected insider), Eisen guaranteed he was going much higher than the industry thought, even Miller seemed to be buying into the notion he would go in the first half of round 1.
Maybe no team valued him top 10, however teams clearly valued him highly enough to force ATL to stick and pick instead of trading down first. It became pretty apparent right before the draft that the league as a whole valued Penix more highly than McCarthy, so this whole “reach” nonsense (which few people are suggesting but still) is silly because you have exactly zero idea how other NFL teams valued him other than to listen to insiders, many of whom are suggesting the opposite of your opinion.