Choosing a defensive player with next year’s top pick may not be the “flashy” option for Las Vegas Raiders fans, but the team requires its next defensive star. Can general manager John Spytek demonstrate the courage and foresight to take the unconventional path?
There is a long-standing NFL bias that quietly shapes draft rooms every April: you do not take a safety early. You can take an edge rusher. You can take a quarterback, a tackle, or a corner. But a safety? That position is supposed to wait its turn. However, let’s be frank—the Raiders need an upgrade at every position and they’re not just a quarterback away; they’re a whole roster away.
Would Spytek actually opt to go the path less traveled in April?
Round 1: Caleb Downs, DB, Ohio State
Caleb Downs challenges that orthodoxy in a way that is uncomfortable for executives who still draft by positional convention instead of defensive impact.
Downs capped his collegiate career the way elite players tend to—by saving his best football for the biggest stage. During Ohio State’s national championship run, he became the organizing principle of the Buckeyes’ defense, finishing with five solo tackles in the title game against Notre Dame and controlling the middle of the field with veteran authority. Across three seasons at Alabama and Ohio State, he totaled 189 tackles, 14 passes defended and 11 tackles for loss. Those are linebacker numbers wrapped in a defensive back’s body.
What separates Downs is not just production. It is processing speed. His ability to diagnose plays borders on unfair, most memorably illustrated by his anticipatory break on a Texas quarterback in the Cotton Bowl—a moment that looked less like reaction and more like foresight. He consistently arrives at the point of attack before ball carriers realize their lanes have collapsed.
In run support, Downs plays with rare discipline. His angles are pristine, erasing cutback lanes while maintaining leverage and forcing backs into bad decisions. He tackles with controlled violence—balanced, square and finished through the ball carrier—and his missed-tackle rate ranks among the lowest in the class, a deficiency that has plagued the Raiders’ defense for years.
In coverage, positional labels start to blur. Downs moves like a corner in man coverage, matching tight ends and slot receivers with patience and balance, and shows advanced zone awareness by manipulating quarterbacks with subtle body positioning. He does not freelance; he weaponizes structure. Add in his immediate leadership at two blue-blood programs, and the picture is clear. Bigger linemen can occasionally engulf him, and his single-high experience is limited, but those are coachable concerns. The impact, intelligence and edge are already there.
Why should the Raiders draft Downs?
No safety has gone in the top 10 since 2018, and none has gone top five since Eric Berry did it 15 years ago. That history will push teams toward safer, quieter choices. It should not. Downs is not a one-note center-field ranger. He recorded 100 tackles as a freshman at Alabama, and his floor is unusually high with versatility that shows up snap after snap. If Malaki Starks’ draft slide becomes the warning teams cling to, they will miss the distinction. These are not the same players.
For the Raiders, it’s about more than filling a spot on the depth chart. It is about drafting a defensive catalyst with rare instincts, real range and a willingness to handle the dirty work. Downs does not simply fit a scheme. He raises its ceiling. Drafting a safety early is supposed to feel risky. Drafting Caleb Downs should feel inevitable.
*Top Photo: Getty Images