It will be a while before we know what the Raiders really got from the 2026 draft, but the early reviews have almost all been positive.
ESPN’s Matt Miller called the Raiders’ draft the best of all 32 teams and specifically praised the way GM John Spytek addressed the secondary.
Spytek’s headliner pick in the secondary was Treydan Stukes, and Todd McShay called the selection of Stukes his favorite pick in the Raiders’ draft, which is a big statement considering who they drafted no. 1 overall.
Stukes was the player McShay mocked to the Raiders on Friday morning, and The Athletic’s Ted Nguyen said on his podcast last week that he believes Stukes was the player the Raiders were targeting in the second round well before the start of the draft.
“I was pretty early on the Raiders picking Stukes. I think they made up their mind on Stukes a week ago,” Nguyen said on the Just Win podcast.
“Stukes was a guy that we talked about that flew up draft boards. [He’s a] highly intelligent player from what I’ve heard. A general manager told Adam Schefter that he would have drafted Stukes over Caleb Downs, which is kind of crazy to me, but I’m telling you… I’ve talked to a few people that really believe Stukes can be special. He ran a 4.3 [forty]. He could play deep. The Raiders needed deep safety and he could play nickel. And I think he will eventually take over that nickel rule from Taron Johnson at some point,” Nguyen continued.
“I think some people see Stukes as a reach, but I could guarantee you he was going to get picked in the second round. He was getting some first-round buzz. So he’s a guy that, like you mentioned, the range shows up. There’s some guys that run a 4-3, but you don’t really see it on film. You absolutely see the range on film, and then he has the ball skills, and he has to cover skills.”
Nguyen added that Stukes is a rare blend of elite athletic abilities, combined leadership skills that could lead to him being the “quarterback” of the Raiders’ defense.
“I think his man-to-man skills need a little bit of work… I think eventually he will go down and play that nickel position that Taron Johnson is playing, and maybe he’ll do some of that this year. But right now, he’ll fill that deep safety position that the Raiders need. He’s going to be a rangy playmaker on the back end,” Nguyen said. “The things you hear a lot about him is he’s a really high character guy, so I could imagine, because that’s where he really impressed was in the interviews, breaking down plays and just showing his character and his love for football.”
“I could really see John Spytek envisioning, we got Fernando Mendoza, he’s going to be the leader of our offense, and then we got Stukes. In this type of system, I could see Stukes getting the green dot eventually. So maybe he sees Stukes as like, okay, this is the guy that’s going to be the leader for this secondary and this defense in this next iteration of the Raiders.”
What’s interesting about Nguyen’s comments on Stukes is that the leaked information out of the Raiders’ building on Thursday night was that a couple of their top targets in round 2 were taken at the end of round one.
Based on what Nguyen was hearing, it sounds like Stukes was the guy they wanted in round 2 from the start… but, then again, it isn’t uncommon for narratives like that to crop up after every draft.
Lying season doesn’t end once the draft is over, but considering the Raiders’ need at safety, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Stukes actually was the player they wanted in the second round from the start.
x: @raidersbeat
Picked a round to early, like pretty much all of Spyteks picks in 2 years. I’m not hating on trying to upgrade the FS position as IPM was terrible ( makes u wonder why Spy signed IPM when he didn’t need to) as the dumb decision to let T. Moehrig walk was asinine. But why not one of the actual safeties instead of a slot guy? It seemed like an old Al pick.