The Las Vegas Raiders have the 12th and 19th picks in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, let’s take a look at who they chose with those picks in the past.
Last year the Las Vegas Raiders had two additional first round picks thanks to the Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper trades and they selected a future superstar in Josh Jacobs and a player ready to lead the defense in Jonathan Abram. The talents of Jacobs were on full display and earned him the PFWA Offensive Rookie of the Year award while Abram’s season came to an end after Week 1’s impressive performance against the Denver Broncos.
This year, the Raiders “only” have one additional pick in the first round thanks to the haul they received from Chicago and thanks to the Bears underachieving in 2020, the pick landed inside the top 20.
Our boys in Silver and Black may not have underachieved according to their preseason win total over/unders, but thanks, and I mean this as sarcastically as possible, to the NFL referees who robbed them of victories over Jacksonville and Denver, they will be making their first selection inside the top 15.
Those losses may have stung brutally at the time because of their impact on the Raiders’ playoff chances, improving the pick makes things just a bit better. In their storied history, the Raiders have picked in the 12th and 19th slots just four times so let’s take a trip down memory lane and see whether those picks went boom or bust.