Raiders to Deploy Brock Bowers as “True Wide Receiver” in ’26?

Is Brock Bowers on his way to a career year?

Based on reports from media personalities at practice, head coach Klint Kubiak has big plans for Bowers in this year’s offense, and former Raiders quarterback Derek Carr estimated this week that Bowers will be the no. 1 option on 90 percent of Kubiak’s pass plays.

Carr didn’t comment on how he thought Kubiak would use Bowers, but former Raider great Lincoln Kennedy said on Tuesday that Bowers may end up taking snaps as a “true” wide receiver.

“He’s gotten better and, in this offense, and the times that I’ve seen him in preseason or practice, they’ve got him involved in this offense. They’ve created matchup issues where he becomes a true wide receiver,” Kennedy said on the Locked on Raiders Squad Show.

Interestingly, one of Bowers’ former coaches said in July that Bowers would transition well to the wide receiver position, and compared his skill set to one of the league’s most dynamic receivers.

Scott Turner was the pass game coordinator and interim offensive coordinator in Las Vegas during Bowers’ record-breaking rookie season, and Turner believes Bowers might be a little more explosive than Falcons’ wide receiver Drake London.

“Day to day, his understanding, everything about the game just comes really easily to him. You correct him on a technique, he’ll never make the same mistake twice. He sees the big picture, so you can line him up in any different spot-on offense, and he’s going to be able to do it,” Turner said on the Just Win podcast.

“I think if he just played receiver, if he wasn’t a tight end, if he played receiver, I think he’d be very similar to Drake London in Atlanta… And he’s actually probably a little more juice than him, like as far as his explosiveness and speed.”

Former Raiders GM Tom Telesco hit a home run with the Bowers pick

The decision makers in Las Vegas took some criticism when they took Bowers in the first round of the 2024 draft, but no one has been laughing since the former Georgia tight took the league by storm in his rookie season.

The California Post’s Vinny Bonsignore said recently that while draft pundits were shaming the Raiders for taking a tight end with Michael Mayer already on the roster, NFL executives were frustrated that Telesco took Bowers with the 13th pick.

“I remember Brock Bowers, when they picked Brock Bowers, [an opposing team’s executive] was a little upset because there were a lot of people that loved Brock Bowers,” Bonsignore said on Raider Nation Radio’s JT the Brick Show.

“There were a lot of people, trust me, I talked to about four or five people from other teams that [Bowers] was their guy. They didn’t think that the Raiders were going to draft him that high because they had just drafted Michael Mayer. So there were some cuss words after that one, after Brock Bowers, because his team was one of the teams, one of the many teams that were drafting right behind the Raiders that wanted him.”

x: @raidersbeat