The Raiders would like to come away from the 2025 draft with a quarterback and their former GM has identified a mid-round prospect that he believes could develop into one of the next great quarterbacks in the league.
Mike Mayock did a segment on the Rich Eisen Show last week and he shared strong opinions on a quarterback that’s going to be drafted higher than a lot of mock drafts are projecting.
“I go to a guy that I a get a twinkle in my eye on a little bit and that’s Jalen Milroe from Alabama. When I look at him, I go ‘Okay, what does he do well?’ Well, he’s a runner I’d put in the same category as Jayden Daniels and Lamar Jackson. How fast is he? As fast as he needs to be and he’s 20 pounds heavier than those two guys,” Mayock said of the 6’2, 225-pound Milroe.
“Does he have some accuracy and inconsistency? 100 percent, which is why him going in the second or third round, I think, is perfect,” Mayock continued. “First round quarterbacks come with this pressure. You’ve got to play them right now. I’d love to see him behind Matthew Stafford… no pressure to play, the opportunity to sit behind an established quarterback and play caller in Sean McVay. I think he’s a two-to-three-year project, but if somebody rubs this piece of coal, he could turn into a diamond.”
Milroe is one of the highest-character players in all the draft and combined with his tremendous athletic ability, the stars are lining up for him to be drafted higher than what many are projecting.
Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter talked last month about the impression Milroe made on teams at the Combine in Indianapolis.
“There were a lot of people that were pleasantly surprised at him. Very pleasantly surprised by him,” Carpenter said of Milroe on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast in March. “His answers were tremendous. His knowledge was extremely impressive. I want to be careful how I word this next one. I think the change in coaching maybe hurt him a little bit with Alabama. I’ll just leave it there.”
“One of the teams asked Jalen Milroe a series of questions about what he was really good at,” Hondo continued. “And then they said they asked him what he could get better at, and his answer was, ‘How much time do you have?’ And the guy goes, we’re sitting there interviewing Jalen Milroe, and he’s telling us all the areas that he’s working on right now.”
“To which this team said to him, ‘Are you not concerned pointing out those things to us would concern us?’ He basically said to them, I wasn’t in the room, but basically said, ‘You should be concerned with any guy that comes in this room, who hasn’t played a down of NFL football and doesn’t tell you that he has weaknesses or that he isn’t working on them. Plus, it’s an insult because that means he doesn’t think you know how to watch film.’”
On Monday, The Athletic’s Dane Brugler reported that Milroe has accepted an invitation to attend the 2025 NFL Draft in Green Bay and that is a solid indication there are teams with a first-round grade on the Alabama quarterback.
It will be interesting to see what the Raiders think of Milroe because based on Mayock’s timeline, he might be a perfect development quarterback for a team like the Raiders.
With Geno Smith most likely tied to the Raiders for the next two years, Milroe would have a unique opportunity in Las Vegas to sit behind one of the NFL’s more respected veteran quarterbacks.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter believes the Raiders are a safe bet to not take a quarterback in the first round, and that could translate to Milroe being one of the players Tom Brady and company will be targeting in the later rounds of the 2025 draft.
x: @raidersbeat
Noooooooooooooo we don’t need project athlete freaks. One was more than enough. Don’t waste a pick
Lol. To that i can only say “WHICH ONE?”