For the third time in four years, the Las Vegas Raiders will have a new general manager making the ultimate decisions on draft day.
GM Tom Telesco is no greenhorn when it comes to the draft, however, having spent the past 11 seasons building the Los Angeles Chargers' roster. He enters his first draft with the Raiders, knowing many holes exist.
“We could use a little bit of help everywhere,” Telesco said on Monday, via Tashan Reed of The Athletic. “I don’t think any position is precluded from being drafted this year.”
The Raiders have holes across the roster, including QB, corner, offensive tackle, wide receiver and a need for interior O-line depth.
The most glaring hole is at quarterback, where Vegas currently has Aidan O’Connell and veteran Gardner Minshew atop the depth chart. To acquire one of the top signal-callers would require a leap up the board from their current No. 13 position.
On Monday, Telesco gave a nod to the current discourse in which essentially every general manager says he’s open to all options.
“News flash: GM says he’s open to trading up, moving back and picking at his spot,” Telesco said. “Everybody always says the same thing.”
We can take an educated guess that Telesco won’t trade back. During his entire run with the Chargers, he never traded back once in any round. He traded up four times -- once in the first round.
Unless Telesco is willing to move a haul to grab a quarterback, the Raiders will likely see what falls to them at No. 13. With multiple holes to fill, the GM will let his board do the work without pigeonholing positions, particularly later in the draft.
“We’re drafting them for the future. It’s not so much where they fit in initially as a rookie the first year,” Telesco said. “I mean, history shows probably less than one-third of rookies, maybe even like 30 percent of rookies, actually play a significant amount of snaps their rookie year. That’s reality. Whatever needs we may have today or whatever perceived needs those are, these players we’re drafting, we’re looking down the road.”