What would a Las Vegas Raiders 7-round draft haul look like this April?
The NFL combine wrapped up last weekend and as usual it was full of surprises and disappointments for many of the players involved. The event is known for helping guys improve their draft stock in a major way, allowing guys to go from hidden gem to top prospect, and also for some guys to be exposed by a poor performance.
We know that the combine is not the end all be all of the scouting conversation but it is another piece of information that can be taken into account when making a draft selection. The way that guys show up on tape and there personalities are much more important aspects of the equation but seeing a player's athletic ability is a big part as well.
This is especially important in positions where production at the college level is not very high and situations where a player may have faced extenuating circumstances that hurt his performance as an amateur. We can think of several examples of guys like Vernon Davis and Anthony Richardson who used great combine performances to vault themselves in to the top 10 of a draft even after solid college careers.
Now that we have this additional information on many of the prospects, with much more to come at their school pro days, we can attack the mock draft one more time and see how we can build the Raiders from pretender to contender.