Oakland Raiders: UDFA Lester Cotton Sr. will turn heads this summer

Though Lester Cotton Sr. was not drafted by the Oakland Raiders, they did get him as an undrafted free agent, and he is someone to keep an eye on this summer.

The 2019 NFL Draft is finally over, and the Oakland Raiders certainly got themselves a nice haul of players. All of those mock drafts and scouting reports are over and done with.

Over 600 new players have entered the league. The Raiders added a total of nine players through the draft, signed ten undrafted players, and invited nine more to the Raiders Rookie minicamp.

One player we liked before the draft was Alabama left guard Lester Cotton Sr. If you read our 7-round mock draft 5.0, you will remember him being a candidate as a 7th round guy. Although he wasn’t drafted by us, the Raiders did end up signing him as an undrafted free agent.

During the draft, the Raiders surprisingly didn’t draft a guard, and honestly, I was shocked because I feel that they don’t have a second guard after Gabe Jackson. However, it turns out Mike Mayock and Jon Gruden had a plan all along.

Standing at 6’4″, 325 pounds, Cotton is a massive human. He is an imposing guard, who can dominate almost anyone in the run game. Unfortunately, due to a few injuries the past 2 seasons, he went undrafted.

When I watched his film in December, I had the following notes on him:

"Cotton is a Massive guard with a nasty edge to his game. Sets the tone physically as often as possible. Very good hand placement. Solid at pulling in the run game. On down blocks, can move almost any defensive linemen. High IQ, understands stunts and picks up blitzes well."

Of course, being that he went undrafted, fans will be weary on him. However, his production doesn’t lie. Lester Cotton Sr. played over 1900 snaps in his 4 years at Alabama. And he was 1 of 20 offensive guards who were full-time starters in 2018 and allowed 0 sacks. In his 328 pass blocking snaps, he allowed a mere 3 QB hits.

If you take it a step further and compare his college career to some other top guards, he outperformed them as well. Over his career, Lester allowed only 1 sack. While first-round guard Chris Lindstrom gave up 7 sacks over his career. Michael Dieter, another top guard, also allowed 8 sacks over his career.

Although Lester Cotton isn’t Quenton Nelson, he did outperform some of the other guards in this class.  If he can continue to develop and adjust to the speed of the game, he could be the Raiders starting Guard one day.

Of course, he would have to beat out Denzelle Good or Chaz Greene, as well as, any of our tackles who might be converted to Guards, such as David Sharpe, Brandon Parker or Denver Kirkland.