While a recent report indicated that the Raiders were focused on Shedeur Sanders, the Colorado QB may not truly be the organization’s top choice at the position. According to Tony Pauline of Sportskeeda, there’s a general belief around the NFL that the Raiders are a prime contender to move up in the draft in pursuit of Miami QB Cam Ward.
[RELATED: Raiders May Be Homing In On QB Shedeur Sanders]
This year’s top tier of quarterback prospects only consists of Ward and Sanders. However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Miami product has separated himself as QB1. In other words, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that the QB-needy Raiders would pursue the top positional prospect.
It is noteworthy that they’d be willing to give up the prerequisite trade haul vs. just settling with Sanders. For what it’s worth, Pauline says there are plenty of league sources who believe the Raiders will just take Sanders at No. 6 if they can’t work out a trade for Ward. Still, it sounds like the front office has a preference, and it seems to match the general sentiment from around the NFL.
According to Pauline, some scouts are discouraged by Sanders’ lack of development in 2024, and the QB could require “a lot of coaching” to refine his throwing fundamentals. If push comes to shove, it sounds like the Raiders are at least willing to tolerate those growing pains, especially since Tom Brady has “a great amount of respect for Sanders’ focus on preparation, his ability to learn and adapt, his accuracy and determination in the pocket, and his toughness to take hits and still be resilient.”
The Raiders were positioned to land the first-overall pick in the draft before winning two of their final three games, dropping the organization to the sixth-overall selection. Despite the fact they won’t have their pick of the litter, it sounds like the Raiders can still walk away with one of the draft’s top quarterback prospects.
Classic raiders making a stupid possibly horrible to making even a worse one. They need to get a weapon in this draft for whoever is in the draft next year
“According to Pauline, some scouts are discouraged by Sanders’ lack of development in 2024, and the QB could require ‘a lot of coaching’ to refine his throwing fundamentals.”
“Scouts” said that about Josh Allen too and he’s now an elite QB. Why don’t we just give him a chance first to see what he does at the NFL level? Being able to devote himself full time to football without academics being involved will allow him to get that coaching.
What? Are you suggesting to throw scouting out the window and blindly throw darts at the wall? For every Josh Allen there’s 10 Trey lances.
Did he care about academics?
I mean, I think Sanders is a solid quarterback prospect who gets a lot of grief that has little to do with him, but he doesn’t have a huge arm or exceptional athleticism, while Josh Allen has some of the greatest physical gifts I’ve ever seen in a quarterback, so that’s not the best example to bring up.