Las Vegas Raiders 2023 7-round NFL Mock Draft: Combine Week edition
143. Clayton Tune QB Houston
The Raiders currently have one quarterback on the roster in Chase Garbers who appears destined for a career as a practice squad player and training camp body. We used the second-round pick in this draft on Hendon Hooker out of Tennessee and we double up at the quarterback position by grabbing Clayton Tune out of Houston with the 143rd overall pick.
Tune has solid size for a quarterback at 6-2 and 215 pounds and as a fifth-year senior, he has plenty of experience and tape to fall back on. The former Houston quarterback put up some incredible numbers in his final year with the Cougars as he threw for over 4,000 yards, 40 touchdowns, and just ten interceptions in 13 games.
He has a blistering career passer rating of 148.6 and he has shown a marked improvement in his accuracy and completion percentage every year. He has one of the more impressive statistical resumes of the quarterbacks in this class and in the past two seasons, he threw for over 7,600 yards, 70 touchdowns, and 20 interceptions.
Some scouts have him as a Day 3 pick but there is a chance that a team could fall in love with him and grab him on Day 2. He has plenty of arm strength and is enough of a threat with his legs to make defenses account for that ability which he displayed with nearly 600 yards rushing in 2022.
The knocks on Tune are that he is only an average athlete, his mechanics are inconsistent, and he has a tendency to abandon the pocket too early when under pressure. There’s nothing that the Raiders could do about his athletic ability but they can coach him up to be more patient with his reads and address his mechanics to make him a more consistent thrower.
Doubling up at quarterback would be an interesting move but this would give the Raiders the best chance at finding a potential franchise quarterback in this draft without giving up a ton of draft capital.