Las Vegas Raiders review: Grading the 2021 draft class
By Nico Di Fede
The Las Vegas Raiders got some great play from their 2021 rookie class, and here, we dive into each pick, grade it out, and give out an overall mark.
After a long, controversy-filled Las Vegas Raiders season, we can finally sit back and reflect on what transpired and where the team is possibly headed without thinking about next week and the opponent.
Despite the drama, the team managed to play well enough to get themselves into the playoffs for the first time since 2016, which is something to respect about this 2021-22 team even if they didn’t get as far as we’d have liked. They certainly have resilience if nothing else.
Bad drafts are a big reason for the Raiders’ decades-long struggles, and with both Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock no longer at the forefront of the front office, past decisions have no barring on what the future holds for the team.
It is still important to look back at the selections they made, however, as many of these decisions will have an impact on the future, especially when it comes to the young guys they had brought in.
The Gruden and Mayock era definitely left us with some head-scratching decisions in the draft and some big failures as a result, and here we will look at their most recent class and see if that trend continued all the way until the end.
To be clear before moving on, I will be grading each player’s individual performances and the pick itself separately. The grade for the pick itself is a judgment on the front office and keeps value in mind, while the performance grade is solely judging how well the player did when on the field.
For example, if a 5th round pick starts but plays average, the performance grade would be a C but the pick grade would be an A or a B considering they found a starter late. The overall draft grade will be calculated the same way your GPA would, and will be based on the pick grades.
With that in mind, let us grade the Las Vegas 2021 rookie class.