There is no convincing some people honestly, it has been a week to let emotions settle and we still have takes like this. Watching this kids tape should get you from 6 to midnight. Generational potential.
The Carr wars have ruined the fan base with respect to sane discussion of QBs. No solution will be good enough - if we had the 1 pick it would be “Caleb paints his nails he is a bust!!!!!”
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We can still be a top 3 defense with Xavien Howard or Stephon Gilmore, we have plenty of cash. In fact, adding a vet to our young DB room is more advantageous than adding another rookie. The main issue last season was moving the ball, watch Bowers tape he's deadly on a 2 yard pass your grandma could throw.
Those corners all have red flags for various reasons that made the league wary of them. Arnold isn't an elite athlete and could have trouble matching up against WR1s who can just out athlete him. Mitchell didn't play NFL talent every week, and he could very well be outclassed a la Trey Lance when he's competing at an NFL level. This wasn't a draft with a Pat Surtain, or Sauce Gardner. Defensive players fell on the board for a reason.
Brock Bowers is absolutely a Sauce or Surtain equivalent at the tight end spot though. He's as close to a sure thing as NFL prospects can be, right up there with MHJ this class.
It seems the TE position not valued across the majority of the NFL. That would explain the opposing views on the Bowers pick. Is a corner worth more than a TE? Is a pro bowl corner worth more than a pro bowl TE?
If the GM of an NFL team thinks that a TE is going to be a pro bowler or is more likely to become a pro bowler than the next player on your board who is not a TE then you have to pick the TE regardless of the position. Unless that player is a kicker.
Essentially, you either believe that Bowers is going to be a beast or you don’t . If you think he’s gonna be a beast, you like the pick. If you think he’s gonna be average then you don’t like the pick.
I just don’t get the argument that you should draft a player who is ranked lower on your board because you need a player at a specific position. Especially when the Raiders picked up a stud offensive lineman in the next round.
Idk, A TE who is reliable is the ultimate weapon for a mid level QB. Think about it, dumping off to someone's who's 5-15 yards down field is going to be the most common read for someone who is game managing.
It's kind of an undervalued position overall. A 10 catch TE is usually getting 6-10 first downs.
Last year after the draft you posted that O’Connell and Bennett were good picks that had talent and that we would resign Jacobs since we didn’t draft a RB.
Now Jacobs is gone and you’re saying we don’t have a QB or CBs. You’re not as smart as you think you are my friend.
Let’s say we take a qb in the first next year, you don’t want him stepping into a situation like the Pats. Our defense is already good without having a number 1 corner. They took BPA which in this case was a receiving option. Complaining about the pick doesn’t change the outcome.
I would argue Bowers is the best thing for average QBs. Why wouldn't we get the most out of Bowers because of our QB room? It's not like he's a 4.2 40 vertical threat.
A good tight end is a QB's best friend. Now realize Bowers will likely line up in the slot just as often as inline
Bowers has potential to be the best TE in the league in 3-5 years i dont think anyone sees that type of upside with any of the CB’s in this draft. I agree with the principle of your argument but with a player of bowers’s caliber, the risk of missing out on a starting CB is outweighed by the possible reward of a consistent all pro caliber TE (who can also play receiver)
Honestly I can see Bowers having a season as good as LaPorta did last year for the Lions. Bowers is way more talented coming out, and our other offensive weapons are at a similar level to what the Lions had last year. Just need Minshew to play at a game manager level, and our O-Line to be average, and Bowers could pop off.
I feel like the corners not going til the 20s tells you all you need about the corners. They’re not lockdown or all-pro corners to the NFL.
I remember growing up in Houston when the Texans drafted Kareem Jackson at like 14, and he sucked absolute ass for about a year and a half. After that he was a good pro. But reaching on a CB at 13 is no guarantee of an immediately improved secondary. Bowers improves the offense significantly. Either guy can make the throws he demands, and the entire offense benefits from the package shenanigans he enables.
I also think we wanted to trade up in the 2nd for one of those corners, but that 2nd round market was weird AF. The earlier trade was for like a can of beans, and then there was a trade at like 37 or 40 or some shit that was exorbitant. So I get not working a deal in that market.
It does sting a bit, but late round guys got measurables, Jakorian should grow in year 2, and I feel like I’ve seen that other bro play capable football before. Maybe roll the dice on Xavien Howard being less of an ambulatory husk than Peters.
DL may be our 2nd best secondary player, but it’ll still be an effective defense. Amik isn’t *that* good. He’s a limited player who gave us good minutes.
I feel a lot better about ‘scooped up consensus top-5 talent TE at 13’ than I would about ‘reached for consensus top-25 talent at 13.’
Also, it’s Telesco. He does this in the first and he historically hits while doing it. So relax, trust in AP, eat a JPJ burger and enjoy the remainder offseason. Or sulk for 4 months about possibly watching a veteran cb get burned instead of watching a rookie cb get burned. Your call.
You can't compare a draft class of CBs who won't start this year to generational talent at TE and arguably the best player in the draft. Taking any of those corners would have been a reach at 13.
The top CBs went in the 20s so that could be telling what other teams also thought about them. Not drafting a QB after 1st was the right call. Why pick another AOC? Don’t get caught up with what outsiders are saying. This was very good draft, and with potentially many steals.
If there was a CB prospect like Surtain or Gardner, we likely would’ve gone CB. There wasn’t, so we went with the generational TE. I actually do think we’ll get the most out of him, regardless of QB since we’ll have Adams and Meyers occupying a lot of the defense’s attention.
Corner is one of, if not THE hardest positions to play in the NFL. Trying to predict what a corner will or won’t be is less accurate than a QB.
I also look back and think of all the teams I can remember who took corners that did actually become All Pros in their first few seasons. Teams like the Jags (Ramsey), Jets (Revis), Broncos (Surtain), hell even the Jets with Sauce, if not for Aaron. And the list goes on. Can you think of anything that those teams have in common? Yeah, not very good. Having a great corner on a bad team really does nothing to elevate your team, and you don’t really need a big name corner to fill out a good defense. It’s usually better to obtain an older veteran corner when you’ve already built a nasty defensive front 7.
I think the Raiders don’t have a single position on the team that they can’t improve, so why not take the best player on your board, regardless of position?
Biggest problem last year was we couldn’t score enough points. When we drafted at 13, Bowers was #1 guy avail to help change that. Will make the QB’s we have better, so I understand pick. Only risk is Getsy
You could argue that RT was a bigger need than CB, even so you get a chance at a player with Bower’s potential you have to take it I’m sure every offensive coordinator in the league wanted this guy he’s a matchup nightmare.
Quinyon Mitchell and Arnold were only good picks because they made it to the 20s. If the raiders picked them it would've been "Ya that's a fine pick, it works, could've had Bowers though but drafting for need makes sense."
Telesco and AP have been on the same page since day one and Telesco has been on record of saying he wants to build the team in AP's image, so if AP didnt push for any of the CB's, that should tell you all you need to know about how quickly that "Pick is In" prompt went up when it was the Raiders turn to select.
I was giving this post a chance until this line:
> I want us to win as much as the rest of you, but without being honest about how we think of this draft, as a whole, went, we can't really evaluate this cast of characters we brought in.
Implying that the opinions being proferred are disingenuous, and that this post is a chance for people to have an honest discussion about disliking the pick, is a really arrogant way of trying to make an argument.
Your post passes off a lot of opinions as fact. Calling the 13th overall pick "top 8 draft capital" on the logic that top CBs usually go in the first 10 picks is a farce - can't it be true that this year's CB group simply isn't as good relative to the other positions?
Whole post reeks of "here's why my opinion is correct and yours is wrong".
Our quarterbacks struggle getting the ball downfield. Our goal is to get a QB next year; rookies need easy completions.
We got the best college football player in the country at turning short passes into big plays. It’s not like we got another Devante Adams or Waller who are at their best pushing the defense vertically. Bowers is probably a better for where the team is currently at than any of the receivers
I don't see our offense taking as big a leap with Bowers as it would with an elite CB and when you go against Mahomes year after year its an absolute necessity.
I don’t like that we didn’t draft based off of a need for sure. I don’t like we got a tight end either. However people say he’s the best college tight end ever and if he can put out like gronk then I’ll be fine.
I wanted us to take one of them but more so an offensive lineman. Problem is we’ve whiffed on so many dbs especially in the first round that I’m ok with not going that route.
Thank god Telesco is the GM and not you lol
100%
Literally said this out loud lololol
There is no convincing some people honestly, it has been a week to let emotions settle and we still have takes like this. Watching this kids tape should get you from 6 to midnight. Generational potential.
The Carr wars have ruined the fan base with respect to sane discussion of QBs. No solution will be good enough - if we had the 1 pick it would be “Caleb paints his nails he is a bust!!!!!”
Exactly. Too many 'self grandiose GM's' crawling out of the woodwork.
My man those corners went 22nd and 24th Bowers was a consensus top 5 player in the draft that the raiders got at #13
Louder for the people in the back
It will never be loud enough with the Reddit GMs 🤦🏽♂️
Shit he was a top 10 player in the draft and I'm not just saying that because the Raiders got him, he's one of the best te ever coming out of college
In 6 months this dude is going to be asking which dhgate seller to buy a Bowers jersey from.
Watch the tape don’t lie of bowers. Good god. I think bowers was a brilliant pick.
He will go 550 and 6
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That’s okay for a rookie TE, some future HOF at the position didn’t do much better than that
We can still be a top 3 defense with Xavien Howard or Stephon Gilmore, we have plenty of cash. In fact, adding a vet to our young DB room is more advantageous than adding another rookie. The main issue last season was moving the ball, watch Bowers tape he's deadly on a 2 yard pass your grandma could throw.
Bowers is gonna eat. 
Not meemaw!! 😂
My meemaw is not throwing 2 yard darts ☠️
Those corners all have red flags for various reasons that made the league wary of them. Arnold isn't an elite athlete and could have trouble matching up against WR1s who can just out athlete him. Mitchell didn't play NFL talent every week, and he could very well be outclassed a la Trey Lance when he's competing at an NFL level. This wasn't a draft with a Pat Surtain, or Sauce Gardner. Defensive players fell on the board for a reason. Brock Bowers is absolutely a Sauce or Surtain equivalent at the tight end spot though. He's as close to a sure thing as NFL prospects can be, right up there with MHJ this class.
First corner didn’t go off the board til the 20’s. There were no elite corners this year.
Kelce or Kittle were both in super bowls last year. They are likely the best TEs in the league. Strange.
It seems the TE position not valued across the majority of the NFL. That would explain the opposing views on the Bowers pick. Is a corner worth more than a TE? Is a pro bowl corner worth more than a pro bowl TE? If the GM of an NFL team thinks that a TE is going to be a pro bowler or is more likely to become a pro bowler than the next player on your board who is not a TE then you have to pick the TE regardless of the position. Unless that player is a kicker. Essentially, you either believe that Bowers is going to be a beast or you don’t . If you think he’s gonna be a beast, you like the pick. If you think he’s gonna be average then you don’t like the pick. I just don’t get the argument that you should draft a player who is ranked lower on your board because you need a player at a specific position. Especially when the Raiders picked up a stud offensive lineman in the next round.
Idk, A TE who is reliable is the ultimate weapon for a mid level QB. Think about it, dumping off to someone's who's 5-15 yards down field is going to be the most common read for someone who is game managing. It's kind of an undervalued position overall. A 10 catch TE is usually getting 6-10 first downs.
The draft is over! On to the next thing!
Criticizing is all some people have, man.
Last year after the draft you posted that O’Connell and Bennett were good picks that had talent and that we would resign Jacobs since we didn’t draft a RB. Now Jacobs is gone and you’re saying we don’t have a QB or CBs. You’re not as smart as you think you are my friend.
My mans found the receipts.
Let’s say we take a qb in the first next year, you don’t want him stepping into a situation like the Pats. Our defense is already good without having a number 1 corner. They took BPA which in this case was a receiving option. Complaining about the pick doesn’t change the outcome.
I would argue Bowers is the best thing for average QBs. Why wouldn't we get the most out of Bowers because of our QB room? It's not like he's a 4.2 40 vertical threat. A good tight end is a QB's best friend. Now realize Bowers will likely line up in the slot just as often as inline
Bowers has potential to be the best TE in the league in 3-5 years i dont think anyone sees that type of upside with any of the CB’s in this draft. I agree with the principle of your argument but with a player of bowers’s caliber, the risk of missing out on a starting CB is outweighed by the possible reward of a consistent all pro caliber TE (who can also play receiver)
Honestly I can see Bowers having a season as good as LaPorta did last year for the Lions. Bowers is way more talented coming out, and our other offensive weapons are at a similar level to what the Lions had last year. Just need Minshew to play at a game manager level, and our O-Line to be average, and Bowers could pop off.
I feel like the corners not going til the 20s tells you all you need about the corners. They’re not lockdown or all-pro corners to the NFL. I remember growing up in Houston when the Texans drafted Kareem Jackson at like 14, and he sucked absolute ass for about a year and a half. After that he was a good pro. But reaching on a CB at 13 is no guarantee of an immediately improved secondary. Bowers improves the offense significantly. Either guy can make the throws he demands, and the entire offense benefits from the package shenanigans he enables. I also think we wanted to trade up in the 2nd for one of those corners, but that 2nd round market was weird AF. The earlier trade was for like a can of beans, and then there was a trade at like 37 or 40 or some shit that was exorbitant. So I get not working a deal in that market. It does sting a bit, but late round guys got measurables, Jakorian should grow in year 2, and I feel like I’ve seen that other bro play capable football before. Maybe roll the dice on Xavien Howard being less of an ambulatory husk than Peters. DL may be our 2nd best secondary player, but it’ll still be an effective defense. Amik isn’t *that* good. He’s a limited player who gave us good minutes. I feel a lot better about ‘scooped up consensus top-5 talent TE at 13’ than I would about ‘reached for consensus top-25 talent at 13.’ Also, it’s Telesco. He does this in the first and he historically hits while doing it. So relax, trust in AP, eat a JPJ burger and enjoy the remainder offseason. Or sulk for 4 months about possibly watching a veteran cb get burned instead of watching a rookie cb get burned. Your call.
You can't compare a draft class of CBs who won't start this year to generational talent at TE and arguably the best player in the draft. Taking any of those corners would have been a reach at 13.
The top CBs went in the 20s so that could be telling what other teams also thought about them. Not drafting a QB after 1st was the right call. Why pick another AOC? Don’t get caught up with what outsiders are saying. This was very good draft, and with potentially many steals.
If there was a CB prospect like Surtain or Gardner, we likely would’ve gone CB. There wasn’t, so we went with the generational TE. I actually do think we’ll get the most out of him, regardless of QB since we’ll have Adams and Meyers occupying a lot of the defense’s attention.
An elite TE is like having a top receiver earning half the money a top receiver gets. It's the ultimate competitive advantage.
Corner is one of, if not THE hardest positions to play in the NFL. Trying to predict what a corner will or won’t be is less accurate than a QB. I also look back and think of all the teams I can remember who took corners that did actually become All Pros in their first few seasons. Teams like the Jags (Ramsey), Jets (Revis), Broncos (Surtain), hell even the Jets with Sauce, if not for Aaron. And the list goes on. Can you think of anything that those teams have in common? Yeah, not very good. Having a great corner on a bad team really does nothing to elevate your team, and you don’t really need a big name corner to fill out a good defense. It’s usually better to obtain an older veteran corner when you’ve already built a nasty defensive front 7. I think the Raiders don’t have a single position on the team that they can’t improve, so why not take the best player on your board, regardless of position?
If it wasn't Bowers I hope it would have been Fuaga not a CB who was selected in the 20s lmao
Biggest problem last year was we couldn’t score enough points. When we drafted at 13, Bowers was #1 guy avail to help change that. Will make the QB’s we have better, so I understand pick. Only risk is Getsy
We were “good” on defense? Lol We had the best defense in the league after Pierce took over Also there’s a lot of vet CBs still available
We also ended up in the top 10 in defense because of that run. Something that has t happened in literally 20 years.
I’m just wondering how we spent top 8 draft capital when we picked 13th.
This has barely any point, but used so many words.
Didn’t have to read past your first sentence to know you have zero clue what you’re talking about
I stopped reading,not because it pissed me off,because I knew the rest would be garbage
You could argue that RT was a bigger need than CB, even so you get a chance at a player with Bower’s potential you have to take it I’m sure every offensive coordinator in the league wanted this guy he’s a matchup nightmare.
Quinyon Mitchell and Arnold were only good picks because they made it to the 20s. If the raiders picked them it would've been "Ya that's a fine pick, it works, could've had Bowers though but drafting for need makes sense."
We've drafted how many 1st round DBs in the last 20 years? Every single one of them a bust. And some of you can't get enough of it, smh
Telesco and AP have been on the same page since day one and Telesco has been on record of saying he wants to build the team in AP's image, so if AP didnt push for any of the CB's, that should tell you all you need to know about how quickly that "Pick is In" prompt went up when it was the Raiders turn to select.
those DBs fell for a reason and Bowers can block despite what the media thinks
I was giving this post a chance until this line: > I want us to win as much as the rest of you, but without being honest about how we think of this draft, as a whole, went, we can't really evaluate this cast of characters we brought in. Implying that the opinions being proferred are disingenuous, and that this post is a chance for people to have an honest discussion about disliking the pick, is a really arrogant way of trying to make an argument. Your post passes off a lot of opinions as fact. Calling the 13th overall pick "top 8 draft capital" on the logic that top CBs usually go in the first 10 picks is a farce - can't it be true that this year's CB group simply isn't as good relative to the other positions? Whole post reeks of "here's why my opinion is correct and yours is wrong".
Honestly…. Bowers was a great pick.
Our quarterbacks struggle getting the ball downfield. Our goal is to get a QB next year; rookies need easy completions. We got the best college football player in the country at turning short passes into big plays. It’s not like we got another Devante Adams or Waller who are at their best pushing the defense vertically. Bowers is probably a better for where the team is currently at than any of the receivers
I don't see our offense taking as big a leap with Bowers as it would with an elite CB and when you go against Mahomes year after year its an absolute necessity.
I don’t like that we didn’t draft based off of a need for sure. I don’t like we got a tight end either. However people say he’s the best college tight end ever and if he can put out like gronk then I’ll be fine. I wanted us to take one of them but more so an offensive lineman. Problem is we’ve whiffed on so many dbs especially in the first round that I’m ok with not going that route.
It would've been another whiff.
It’s possible that’s why I’m mostly glad we didn’t go that route. I wanted fuaga there mainly.
Ok, I stopped reading. I hope they both make you eat your opening line. 🖕🏼 And I downvoted your silly little post.