The Las Vegas Raiders were one of the most aggressive teams in the National Football League during the offseason and free agency. The Raiders brought in players that will make their team better for next season and still have plenty left for future teams.
The pairing of head coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Spytek has shown so far that they can work together and follow the plan they came up with, to get the Raiders franchise ready for the 2025 season and beyond.
The Raiders are not done making their final moves of the offseason. The Raiders will look to add players that best fit their scheme and bring value to the organization and leadership.
The Silver and Black will also turn their attention to the 2025 NFL Draft. The Raiders are looking to add another good class after they had a good one last year. The big reason for that was that there were a lot of bad drafting teams that were reaching for their needs instead of taking the best available player. The Raiders will look to capitalize if the chance presents itself again.Our Hondo Carpenter and Hall of Fame senior committee member Rick Gosselin gave their thoughts about bad drafting teams on a recent episode of the “Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast.”
“When I was working the drafts and grading the drafts, I started every team with a C,” said Gosselin. “You can count the great drafts in history on probably two hands. A lot of people grade drafts and they grade, everyone starts with an A and you lose your A. My feeling is that if you have an A, you are supposed to get good players, so that is a C, if you did better you get a B … But the overwhelming number of drafts are average and the guys that, the players or the teams that hit late.”
“I would start with Ron Wolf. I thought Ron Wolf was the greatest second day drafter in history. He drafted starters and Pro Bowlers, and Hall of Famers in rounds 4-7. Anybody can draft well in the first three rounds. The great drafts are built on the old second day at four through seven, and I think a lot of it is that the league has gone younger across the board, and I think he scouting has gotten younger. And I think the older scouts knew the buildings, knew that they would talk to the trainers, the equipment guys, the coaches, they had connections that built up over the years.”
“The new scouts, younger scouts, do not have those same connections. And a lot of times, they do not get the insight. that the older scouts got. Based on 20- and 30-year relationships with the scout that they had at a particular school. I think college coaches fold a lot of teams. They talk about players, they do not give them the negative stuff. And unfortunately, they find out the negative stuff after the draft and I think the fact that the scouting has gotten so much younger, I think has impacted the drafting.”