The Raiders added 11 players in last month’s draft and Maxx Crosby was asked on his podcast this week which ones have impressed him the most.
On defense, Crosby mentioned third-round pick Darien Porter as a player that has stood out, and on offense he offered player that comes as a bit of a surprise.
“The easy one, everyone always talks about Ashton [Jeanty], you talk about Jack [Bech], both of them look like ballers [and] have been awesome so far,” Crosby said on The Rush.
“But Dont’e Thornton, the dude we drafted from Tennessee, the big receiver, 6’4, another freak. I think he might be 6’5,” Crosby continued. “He reminds me of Martavius Bryant. He even looks like him. He’s tall, skinny, wears no. 10, he’s got the grilles in, he’s got the dreads. The way he runs, the way he catches the ball. He reminds me of Martavius and it’s crazy because a kid like that… hasn’t hit his full potential yet. Seeing him on the field and realizing what he can be is from a player perspective is like ‘Holy sh–, this guy could be something serious.”
When the Raiders took Tennessee wide receiver Dont’e Thornton in the fourth round, the talk was all about Thornton’s speed and how he would be a pick the late Al Davis would have loved.
Thornton was arguably the fastest wide receiver in this year’s draft, and the criticism of his game going into the draft was mostly around his route running. He was primarily a deep threat at Tennessee, but Thornton doesn’t see himself as a one trick pony in the NFL.
According to Thornton, it was the offensive system at Tennessee that limited his routes in college.
“That was mostly every team’s main talking point was asking with the offense that we run here at Tennessee if I’m able to run those pro-style routes…I had to be very intentional, playing two seasons here at Tennessee, we don’t have the same wide route tree that most pro-style offenses have,” Thornton said at his Tennessee pro day.
“I’d say just my intermediate and medium route running,” said Thornton. “With my past two years (at Tennessee), I haven’t really had the opportunity to really display that as much. So just getting back into the flow of doing that. I’d say that was the No. 1 thing everybody was saying.”
Thornton said after the draft that Raiders head coach Pete Carroll talked to him about his routes at Tennessee, and believes the speedster had more opportunities to show his versatility at the University of Oregon before he transferred to Tennessee.
“On draft day, when I talked to Coach Pete Carroll, he said it himself, if you look at the Oregon film, there’s a lot of stuff you can see that people didn’t see with these last two years with me playing at Tennessee,” said Thornton during an appearance on OLV Raiders Network. “If you turn on my two years of Oregon film, you’ll see me running true routes.”
Scouts and analysts were torn on Thornton going into the draft, but draft analyst Tony Pauline said he believes the Raiders got a great value with Thornton in the fourth round.
“Dont’e Thornton has got tremendous upside,” Pauline said after the draft.
“I had him as a third-round pick. They took him in the fourth round. He keeps getting better and better. He ran a 4.3 at six-foot four at the combine.”
Thornton will most probably start the season battling third-year wide receiver Tre Tucker for playing time, but it shouldn’t take long for the Raiders’ newest speedster to carve out a role in Chip Kelly’s offense.
x: @raidersbeat
Could be and is, is about as wide apart as sunshine and tornadoes.
And as far as the Raiders go, there haven’t been too many,”could be’s” that have become spectacular.
Ruggs was on the road to be a could be. But as they say no brains no headache.