Tafur Says Josh McDaniels Didn’t Nix a Trade for C.J. Stroud: “That Report Was Bogus”

A Sports Illustrated report last month told the story of how former Raiders GM Dave Ziegler and Josh McDaniels weren’t in agreement on a handful of personnel decisions over the last two years, and one of those points of contention involved former Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud.

Ziegler apparently wanted to trade up for Stroud, but McDaniels was only willing to trade up for Alabama’s Bryce Young.

It was a report that gained national attention at the time and has been a spicy talking point among Raider fans ever since.

But on Thursday, The Athletic’s Vic Tafur went to the airwaves to say the report wasn’t true.

Responding to co-host Ted Nguyen, who suggested that interim GM Champ Kelly should keep the receipts that McDaniels was responsible for the Raiders passing on Stroud, this was Tafur’s rebuttal of the report…

”There are no such receipts,” Tafur said on the State of the Nation podcast. “I won’t say a bad word, but that report was bogus. There are no such receipts about somebody wanting C.J. Stroud. Bruce Young was the guy everyone was talking about. Not C.J. Stroud.”

For what it’s worth, Tafur previously acknowledged that he hadn’t talked to the former Raiders GM in months.

At the time, he said that when they last talked, the team was leaning toward re-signing Jarrett Stidham and drafting a quarterback early, but that Young was the preference of both Ziegler and McDaniels…

“Ziegler and I haven’t talked for months (I was deemed too negative), but back when we did chat, re-signing Stidham and drafting a quarterback early was a more attractive option than signing Garoppolo. But the Denver Broncos outbid the Raiders for Stidham (two years for $10 million, with $5 million guaranteed) and McDaniels and Ziegler really only liked one of the top five college quarterbacks, and Bryce Young was picked first by the Carolina Panthers.”

Obviously, both reporters can’t be right, but they are presumably passing along what they have been told.

Who do you suppose didn’t get the good information on this one?

twitter: @raidersbeat

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