Getty Dave Ziegler & Mark Davis of the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Las Vegas Raiders appeared poised to draft a quarterback in this year’s draft but the Carolina Panthers’ trade for the No. 1 pick complicates things. There are now at least three teams picking ahead of the Raiders that are likely to select a quarterback. The team could explore moving up to the No. 3 spot that’s currently held by the Arizona Cardinals but that could depend on which quarterbacks are still available.
Las Vegas gave Jimmy Garoppolo a three-year contract this offseason so that gives them time to wait on drafting a quarterback if they don’t love their options this year. Vic Tafur of The Athletic pitched the Raiders trading the No. 7 pick to the Minnesota Vikings for a third-round pick and next year’s first-round pick. He then had them trade back up to No. 16 to take cornerback Devon Witherspoon. Tafur’s logic was that an extra first-round pick next year may help the Raiders draft USC’s Caleb Williams or North Carolina’s Drake Maye in the 2024 class:
We obviously really love Witherspoon if we traded down from No. 7 to 23 and then back up to get him. He doesn’t have ideal size at 6-1, 180 pounds, but he has great instincts, closing speed and ball skills, and he will leave a mark when he hits receivers. Witherspoon had 14 passes defensed, three interceptions and an opposing passer rating of 24.6 when targeted in 2022. He skipped workouts at the combine and his pro day because of a tweaked hamstring but plans to have a private workout for NFL teams on April 5. Witherspoon would be a foundational piece for the Raiders’ rebuild. (And we added the Vikings’ 2024 first-rounder just in case we need to go all in for Caleb Williams or Drake Maye next year.)
Raiders Would Need Top-2 Pick to Get Williams or Maye
Maye and Williams still have at least one full season left of playing college football so a lot can change by this time next year. That said, if they were both part of the current class, they’d likely be the first two quarterbacks taken. That’s not a knock on Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud but both Maye and Williams are among the best quarterback prospects of the past decade.
The problem facing the Raiders is that they’ll likely need one of the first two picks in the draft to land one of them. The team has too many good players to be bad enough for a top-two pick. What the Raiders should hope for is that a team that already has a quarterback has a bad year and ends up with one of the top two picks. They would then look to trade down for a haul. Having an extra first-round pick next year would give the Raiders a big advantage in trying to move up.
Trying to tackle Caleb Williams might just be the most difficult thing to do
Raiders Could Still Take QB This Year
Garoppolo buys the Raiders some time to find a young quarterback but that won’t stop them from picking one up this year if they think they can find the right guy. If Anthony Richardson falls to No. 7, it’s easy to see Las Vegas taking a chance on the raw quarterback from Florida.
The team could also look at Hendon Hooker in the second round. Garoppolo is solid when he plays but the team can’t ignore his injury history. The Raiders will add another quarterback at some point but it still remains to be seen when they might take one in the draft.