Expect the Oakland Raiders to be very active Thursday night
By Brad Weiss
The Oakland Raiders hold three first round picks on Thursday night, but the expectation is that they will be very active in possibly moving some picks.
The Oakland Raiders have a rookie general manager in Mike Mayock, but he has looked anything but over the first couple of months of the new league year. Mayock has been active on many fronts, and the end result has been the Raiders adding some incredibly talented players to their roster.
Now comes his specialty, the NFL Draft, where he has served as a draft analyst for the NFL Network, and has been around the event for many years. He and head coach Jon Gruden have a lot of work to do on Thursday night, as they hold three first round picks, and may be in the market to moving at least one of those selections for more picks later on.
Of course, there is the chance they stay at No. 4, 24, and 27, and try to move some other picks to get more Day 2 selections. Oakland will pick only once on Friday, as they hold pick No. 35, but you can expect Mayock and company to be working the phones all night on Thursday to try to add more draft capital.
In what has already been an incredibly active offseason, the Raiders head into Thursday with a full head of steam. This is the first NFL draft for Mayock as a general manager, and he will have to battle with Gruden with every selection they make, as the head coach has the final say when it comes to personnel.
The hope is that Mayock has done enough this offseason to warrant Gruden’s trust, as the two sent all the scouts home ahead of the draft. That is not the story here, as their work was done, but the real story will play out in how these two men view their draft board, and whether or not just one Day 2 pick is enough to really build this roster back up.
dark. Next. Raiders: Pre-draft 2019 win-loss predictions
There is only four days remaining until the 2019 NFL Draft, and a lot is going to be said between now, and when the Raiders hand Roger Goodell their first index card. As it stands, the Raiders will be first heard from at No. 4 overall, but as we have seen in the past, anything can happen on draft night.