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It’s now been quite a while since Lynn Bowden Jr. was traded away from the Las Vegas Raiders. The 2020 third-round draft pick never even got a chance to play with the team but it appears that he’s not over the fact that they traded him. He responded to a post that asked what is a sports photo that he’ll always remember.
Bowden decided to post a picture of him playing against the Raiders at Allegiant Stadium and added a smiley face.
Bowden’s Miami Dolphins ended up winning that game so that’s probably why he won’t forget it. He hasn’t overtly ripped on the Raiders but he’s clearly not happy with how everything went down. He has every right to be irritated. The team didn’t even give him a chance to work through his issues and develop as a player. The whole situation was a bad look for Las Vegas but Bowden appears to have landed on his feet.
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Will Raiders Live to Regret Trading Bowden?
When the Raiders drafted Bowden, the plan was to have him switch to playing running back. The hope was that he’d develop into a capable backup for Josh Jacobs who could make an impact in the passing game. It became clear to the team early on that Bowden wasn’t handling the position change all that well. Instead of working with him, they just decided to cut their losses and trade him to the Dolphins.
Bowden was probably never going to develop into a capable running back and the Raiders saw that coming. However, they should’ve at least given him a shot to play wide receiver. He caught 28 passes for 211 yards in 10 games. Fellow Raiders third-round pick Bryan Edwards caught 11 passes for 193 yards in 12 games. Now, that doesn’t mean Bowden is going to be a better player than Edwards in the long-run, but he does have talent, and Las Vegas probably should’ve given him more of a shot before they traded him.
Raiders Waste Too Many Draft Pick
Despite relying heavily on the draft to fix a lot of their issues, the Raiders have wasted way too many picks since Jon Gruden took the team over. In 2018, they gave up a third-round pick to acquire wide receiver Martavis Bryant. He got cut before the season but the Raiders quickly re-signed him. He only ended up playing in eight games and accumulated 266 receiving yards.
The following season, the Raiders sent the Steelers a third and fifth-round pick in a trade for Antonio Brown. He never played a game for the team before he was released. Those draft picks were effectively thrown away.
This past offseason, the team traded a fourth-round pick to the Dolphins for linebacker Raekwon McMillan. He played in all 16 games for the Raiders but his snaps were very limited. When the team traded Bowden to Miami, they got the fourth-round pick back but essentially wasted the 2020 third-round pick. Winning teams don’t throw away draft picks. The Raiders need to be much smarter when making trades.
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