Las Vegas Raiders 2020 pre-draft position overview: Running Back

Will the Raiders draft a running back?

As discussed, the Raiders have much greater needs to address in the draft than running back so we can likely rule out them selecting one in the first three rounds. However, they will probably take a look at their depth chart and wonder what would happen in the event of an injury to Josh Jacobs.

Last season they had the luxury of leaning on DeAndre Washington who was a known commodity having spent three years with the Raiders. If they were to stick with this group in 2020, the Raiders would be forced to start Rod Smith who has only started two games in his five year career. Richard has only started two games as well and has never had more than 10 rushing attempts in a game so it’s unlikely that would change even due to injury.

The likely scenario is the Raiders target a running back in the later rounds of the draft where many teams have had great success finding value. In fact, three of the top 15 rushers in the NFL last season were picked in the fourth round or later and one was undrafted in Denver’s Phillip Lindsay. While any back selected by the Raiders would not be expected to carry the load the way any of those top rushers have but they can provide a different look for defenses, especially if they are classified as power backs.

With the Raiders owning seven picks in this year’s draft and many predicting they will trade down to accumulate more picks, we can expect a running back to be selected by Las Vegas on day 3 of the draft.