The Raiders may not have stumbled into the best year to need a quarterback in the draft, and the reason they are in this position (again) is because they couldn’t get one of the top quarterbacks in the draft a year ago.
No one is complaining about the Brock Bowers pick, but inquiring minds would love to know which rookie quarterback the Raiders were targeting eight months ago.
Everyone knows Antonio Pierce wanted Jayden Daniels, but was there another quarterback they were targeting?
According up Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports, the Raiders were expecting Michael Penix Jr. to be available at pick 13, and that may have been the pick if he was available.
“I think the Raiders’ brass, including general manager Tom Telesco, believed Michael Penix Jr. would fall far enough in the 2024 draft to make his selection viable on their own draft board,” Robinson reported on Monday. “What the front office didn’t anticipate was that Penix had a higher premium on him in other organizations, and that the 2024 pool of quarterbacks was exponentially better than what was coming in the 2025 pipeline.”
Raider Nation Radio host ‘JT the Brick’ said in recent weeks that he had expected the Raiders to draft Oregon State offensive tackle Taliese Fuaga with pick 13 and Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter said there were two other players the Raiders liked with the pick.
One was Bowers and the other was Notre Dame offensive tackle Joe Alt.
“They loved [Joe] Alt,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast. “They didn’t think there was a chance they were going to get Alt, and they loved [Taliese] Fuaga. I believed, and I believe it was the feeling in the building, that they were going to end up [drafting] Fuaga.”
Robinson’s report might conflict a little with others, but it does line up with what ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler said in April.
“In a room where coach Antonio Pierce, general manager Tom Telesco and team owner Mark Davis were joined by more than 20 scouts, the Raiders, picking 13th, had expected to consider a ‘second wave’ of first-round QB prospects that included Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. and Oregon’s Bo Nix,” Fowler reported after day one of last year’s draft.
“A Raiders source said the team would have considered Penix at No. 13, more so than McCarthy or Nix, but he was long gone by then,” Fowler added.
None of last year’s news is relevant now, but it does sound like someone in the Raiders draft room would have been pushing for Penix if the Falcons hadn’t drafted him at pick 8.
The quarterback class isn’t projected to be as deep in this year’s draft, and depending on where you get your information, it sounds like the Raiders are already focusing on Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders.
Ten months ago, Deion Sanders was practically begging Pierce to draft his sons, but after a messy 2-11 start to the 2024 season, will Las Vegas still be a preferred destination for the Sanders family?
Answers are coming soon…
x: @raidersbeat
Alt or Fuaga would’ve been good smart picks. Penix????? OMG NO. JJ was and is the best day one of all the Q’s. Bowers was a no brainer. Taking a Q in the top 5 this year, big mistake. Trade back. Too many needs.
Fire every dumb scout in the raiders organization because there track record speak for there self Washington get a quarterback and the improve Denver get a quarterback and the improve the raiders go get a mashup and do bad the backup that was with the raiders and went to Denver we could have resigned him and paid minshew money
I’m concerned with Sanders mental maturity. If it was just the throwing teammates under the bus. No big deal. If was just the ballboy incident. Again no big deal. Even both those together barely raises an eyebrow. But then the shoving the official. Add those three things up and it is very troubling. Praying Allar comes out. That’s the best of this draft.