The Raiders have received a lot of praise for taking Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty with the no. 6 pick, but who would they have drafted if Jeanty wasn’t on the board?
The answer depends on who you listen to.
According to Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter, it would have probably been a defensive player taken if Jeanty wasn’t on the board.
“Had Jeanty not been there… and Mason Graham and Will Campbell, I think the Raiders would have pulled the trigger on Jalon Walker easily. Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast. “I know the Raiders loved him. Had they traded back, let’s say they had gone to nine or 12, I would not have been stunned if Omarion Hampton was a Raider.”
“They loved him,” Carpenter continued on Hampton. “They liked Jeanty more, but it was negligible, very close. They loved Omarion Hampton.”
As it turned out, Hampton was the no. 22 pick in the draft to the Los Angeles Chargers, so the Raiders wouldn’t have come anywhere near getting Hampton with their second-round pick. If the decision makers in Las Vegas wanted one of their top two running backs, it had to happen in the first round, and nearly everyone had Jeanty rated above Hampton as a prospect.
The other player heavily linked to Vegas was Texas offensive tackle Kelvin Banks Jr., who was the popular pick to the Raiders in the 48 hours prior to the draft.
According to a report from The Athletic, Banks was the contingency plan if Jeanty wasn’t available with the sixth pick.
“If Jeanty had been gone by No. 6, Spytek said he was confident in the Raiders’ draft board. They would have gotten the next guy up (our tea leaves indicate it was Texas tackle Kelvin Banks Jr.) and been ‘super excited about him,” The Athletic’s Vic Tafur reported on Friday night.
Unless GM John Spytek chooses to disclose who they were going to draft if Jeanty wasn’t available, we probably won’t ever know for sure.
As it stands, just about everyone had high praise for the Raiders’ decision to take Jeanty and time will tell if it was the right decision.
x: @raidersbeat