A good chap of mine brought up an excellent point the other day: “For a team that has so many early-round picks, they shouldn’t have depth issues.” Said friend was speaking of the Las Vegas Raiders. That’s not a fool hardy notion, really. And I had to toast the gent who brought it up.
Cheers, mate!
Raiders Head Coach Jon Gruden brought draft obsessed Mike Mayock aboard to be his general manager. What a fortuitous turn of events.
The team’s initial draft with the JG-MM dynamic at the helm was a homerun. The duo was akin to Riggs and Murtah from Lethal Weapon fame. (I’ll let you decide out which one was Mel Gibson and who was Danny Glover).
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The 2019 draft class is arguably one of the best among the 32 teams in the NFL. That excellent forray in April was preceded by a free agency March that saw the team score some high-priced talent.
Trent Brown, Tyrell Williams and Lamarcus Joyner were the big three who put pen to paper on big-money deals.
Optimism abound!
But, due to mitigating circumstances out of that trio, only Brown justifies the coin he’s pocketing from Las Vegas owner Mark Davis. Injuries and/or (forgive me, but I must be blunt) pathetic ineffectiveness eroded the value of Williams and Joyner. Ailments continued to mount and the Raiders roster became a virtual injury list, something that wildy exposed the lack of depth the team truly had.
With a personnel addict in Mayock and a film fiend in Gruden, how could this happen?
It’s truly poppycock and shouldn’t happen. Desperation signings arrived and, not surprisingly, those additions became subtractions — posthaste. This type of roster malarkey must come to an end.
Inadequate roster depth was one of the contributing factors to the 1-5 freefall after the team pulled up it’s big boy britches and got to 6-4 after 10 contests.
Surely, Mayock is the talent acquisition manager and it’s Gruden who is the talent developer. That’s a point that cannot be challenged or questioned.
Well, I digress.
Gruden may be the talent acquisition manager and Mayock is merely producing the scouting report. You got me. A pint of Guinness for you, mate!
Yet Gruden, Mayock and the rest of the Raiders personnel department is armed with the draft picks and the coin to make manuevers in April’s draft and March’s free agency period, respectively. If the Raiders were devoid of said selections and cap space, then sure, the lack of depth has a valid reason to exist. But that isn’t the case here.
The Raiders go into Las Vegas with a bevy of chips and it’s up to them to bet big or bet small. Somewhere in there though, the team shouldn’t be rolling the dice on proper depth.
Gamble big on premiere positions, but don’t go all-in with a lacking roster overall.
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