The Las Vegas Raiders needed to add talent at the wide receiver position this offseason, and they did just that in the 2025 NFL Draft. Second-rounder Jack Bech comes to Las Vegas with the strongest track record, but fourth-rounder Dont'e Thornton Jr. has, by far, the most upside.
Thornton is already in elite company with Calvin Johnson and D.K. Metcalf as the only players above 6-foot-4 with 4.30-second 40-yard dash speed. While these are impressive measurables, every team in the NFL passed on him multiple times in April before the Raiders grabbed him at No. 108 overall.
That is because the perception was that Thornton does not have a complete route tree, and he is a one-dimensional wide receiver. Carroll and his staff were seemingly the only ones who wanted to take on the challenge of developing him, and it is already paying dividends.
Raiders' Dont'e Thornton Jr. is already improving on his "biggest flaw"
Through the offseason program and nearly two weeks of training camp, Thornton has been simply electric for the Silver and Black. The amount of hype he's been getting for his big plays, however, pales in comparison to what Raiders.com reporter Levi Edwards said on Monday.
"Geno Smith finds Dont’e Thornton Jr. for a touchdown in red zone drills," Edwards wrote. "The route tree is certainly expanding."
Scoring touchdowns in camp is nothing new to Thornton, but the assertion that his route tree is expanding should worry the rest of the NFL. It may not be long until the rest of the league is forced to admit that they brutally messed up by not taking him at any point in the first two days of the draft.
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Raider Nation already knew that the route tree criticisms of Thornton were overblown, but it is nice to see a reporter confirming this to everyone else. At Tennessee, all Thornton was seemingly asked to do was run deep routes, but that does not mean that was all he could do.
At Oregon, however, he ran a more complete route tree and demonstrated that he can contribute to an offense in a variety of ways. He did this alongside other talented players like Bucky Irving, Terrance Ferguson and Troy Franklin.
It may just be camp hype, but it seems like Thornton is destined to prove a lot of people wrong in 2025. The last time a fourth-rounder got this much attention at Raiders training camp, his name was Maxx Crosby, and fans remember how that turned out.