ESPN’s Todd McShay has the Las Vegas Raiders taking Alabama WR Jaylen Waddle at No. 17 overall. We look at the Pros and Cons of that selection.
As the season finishes, and the league heads into the playoffs without the Las Vegas Raiders being part of it once again, the NFL Draft season is officially upon us. There is no doubt that the Raiders have glaring needs, especially on the defensive side of the ball, and analyst and Raider Nation alike will undoubtedly have a wide array of what position is more important, and who the Raiders should target with their first pick at seventeen.
We saw free agent acquisitions like Maliek Collins turn out to be a huge bust after being immediately marked as a captain, barely making an impact. Injury issues and lack of quality depth exposed a young secondary for the Raiders as well, mainly at the safety position.
On the flip side, the Raiders struggled at times to get their explosive offense to be consistent and provide production in the red zone. Rookie speedster Henry Ruggs III had an underwhelming season, mainly in part to early injury issues, but it was not a huge issue due to the emergence of free agent acquisition Nelson Agholor.
In his most recent mock draft, ESPN Analyst Todd McShay has the Raiders taking Alabama wide receiver Jaylen Waddle with their first round pick at seventeen, which does not really fill a huge need. Though it would mark their second first round pick in a row taking an Alabama speedy wideout, there’s no denying Waddle is a special home run type of player anytime the ball is in his hands.
Though I do believe the draft this year should be heavily focused on the defensive side of the ball, you can never have too many weapons on offense, and here are the Pro’s and Con’s of the Raiders taking Waddle with their first pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.
Pros for the Raiders drafting Jaylen Waddle
Jaylen Waddle is nothing short of a special receiver, as he has unbelievable speed and above average route-running ability at every level of the field. He was used in every single way possible that allowed Alabama to get the ball in his hands, which included playing outside receiver, slot receiver, scatback in the backfield, and as their primary return specialist.
In today’s NFL, the most successful and explosive offenses spread out the defense and have playmakers all over the field. Talent is valued more then being a cookie cutter, prototypical player at any one position specifically.
Call it being able to play multiple positions, call it the ability to be diverse at any spot on the field, or however you’d like to justify the usage, but putting elite athletes on the field, especially at the receiver position is more important then worrying if you have multiple guys with similar skill sets or “labels”.
As Raiders fans, its hard to look in your own backyard within the division and see how Kansas City is having so much success in all facets of their offense. One of the most dynamic parts is their wide receiver group that has the speed and ability to make defenses choose who to worry about, because they can’t contain everyone.
The interesting part is that Kansas City has never valued having a big-bodied, Calvin Johnson-type receiver to compliment their faster players. Now, it does help when you have one of the best tight ends in the game to fill that role somewhat, but even despite having one of the fastest players in the league in Tyreek Hill, the Chiefs continued to target smaller, speedier receivers like Mecole Hardman.
Their biggest receiver is Sammy Watkins, who sits at 6-1 203 lbs.
Although the Raiders offense is vastly different from the way the Chiefs operate, vying for multiple tight end sets and valuing the play action, there’s no denying Gruden likes to spread out the offense and try to dial things up for his fast receivers on the outside in Ruggs and Agholor.
Adding Waddle to this offense would no doubt enhance the ability to be explosive. Defenses would have to worry about speed on both sides of the field when Waddle and Ruggs were in together, and we saw the impact Ruggs had mainly without the ball in his hands.
Now imagine that type of ability to open up a defense being twice as impactful.
Waddle was somewhat suppressed at Alabama due to being buried on the depth chart behind Jerry Jeudy, Henry Ruggs, and DeVonta Smith. But just because his opportunity to produce was somewhat limited, he took advantage of every chance he got to be an impact player for the Crimson Tide.
The type of player within an offense that Waddle and Ruggs are is undoubtedly very similar, but that shouldn’t deter the Raiders from potentially targeting a dynamic play maker like him. Just ask the defending Super Bowl Champs, who are competing for another title, how that type of strategy worked out for them.
Cons for the Raiders drafting Jaylen Waddle
As noted previously, the core of Jon Gruden’s offense isn’t the spread ’em out, sling it down the field type of offense. We definitely saw him dial up plays that allowed Derek Carr to be aggressive down the field, most notably to Nelson Agholor, but the offensive scheme that they relied on and used to get momentum going was more of a run-first, play action passing type offense.
The fear of bringing in someone like Waddle is whether his skill set would be properly utilized. Drafting Ruggs last year gave the Raiders that speedy downfield threat that could be moved around to multiple positions. Unfortunately, Ruggs dealt with injuries early. and we saw the offense that was supposed to be catered towards his abilities, be implemented and taken over by Agholor.
That’s not to say it was the wrong choice to take Ruggs due to his underwhelming production this year, as I believe he will grow into that next level weapon the Raiders plan on him being. But being able dial up special and specific plays to accentuate his skill set seemed to take a back seat to feeding other star players like Darren Waller.
So if getting one speedy, do it all type player involved in the offense was hard to do last season, deductive reasoning says it might be even more difficult to incorporate two such players effectively. The Raiders are likely to re-sign Agholor with the production he had this year, but to steal a saying from the NBA, “there’s only one ball” and getting enough touches and targets to warrant a top-20 pick might be hard to maneuver with such a talented group of weapons.
Waddle also suffered an ankle injury at the beginning of this season that kept him out all year. Even though he had a successful surgery and is expected to play in the National Championship game, a player who relies a lot on speed having an injury to a key joint like his ankle, doesn’t give a team or fan base the most peace of mind that further injury won’t pop up down the road.
Integrating the fact that the Raiders have needs elsewhere that are by all accounts more important to address early on in the draft then wide receiver, I find it hard to imagine them pulling the trigger on him or any other offensive wide out. If they were going to choose anyone that could potentially be there at No. 17 though, Waddle is as good a choice as any.
I expect them to focus more on the defensive line or back end of the secondary with their first round pick, two areas where the team struggled mightily in 2020, and really for a while now. Targeting a defensive tackle or free safety would be more important, but Waddle is the type of player that makes it hard to pass up on, especially when Gruden is pulling the trigger on the selection.