How the Las Vegas Raiders can move up and draft Joe Burrow
By Matt Holder
What does it take?
According to the chart, the number one overall pick is worth 3,000 points. For the purpose of this article, we’ll go ahead and assume 3,200 points are required to take the pick away from Cincinnati since Burrow is such a rare prospect. Also, 200 points are half of the difference in value between the first and second selection so I think that’s a fair increase for the Heisman winner.
Thus, the goal for Las Vegas – and this article – is to find trade scenarios that get the organization to 3,200 point mark.
When discussing the Raiders moving up in the draft, the natural reaction is to package both first-round picks and hope that gets the job done. Unfortunately, pick 12 is valued at 1,200 points and pick 19 is worth 875, so the combination would still leave the Raiders 1,125 points short of the goal.
The next step is to start looking at the later rounds.
Not having a second-round selection really handcuffs the organization in this scenario and the triplet of third-rounders has to come into play. The value of combining all of those picks is 511 points which still leaves Las Vegas 614 points shy of acquiring enough assets to take Burrow.
At this point, there isn’t enough value in rounds four through seven as the team’s picks in those spots total 117.7 points, which is 496.3 short of the goal. In other words, packaging literally every 2020 draft pick the Raiders have still won’t be enough to get to number one overall. Again, the question arises of how the Silver and Black can acquire enough assets to peak the Bengals interests, and that’s where some wheeling and dealing comes in.