The Raiders tried to move up in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft to select Jayden Daniels, but their efforts were quickly rebuffed.
The Las Vegas Raiders weren’t exactly quiet during the 2024 NFL Draft, as they made eight selections over seven rounds, but they didn’t make a single draft day trade in an effort to move up or down the board. However, recent reports suggest that it wasn’t for a lack of effort, and that they were even plotting a potential play to move up in the first round to select Jayden Daniels.
The Raiders were armed with the 13th overall pick in the draft, and they were widely expected to try to use it to select their quarterback of the future. Their favorite quarterback that they had a shot to land was Daniels, but their hopes of potentially landing him were quickly crushed when they realized any attempts to move into the top three picks of the first round were “futile.”
“According to multiple sources, the Raiders had explored a potential move into the top three for a quarterback. LSU’s Daniels, who played at Arizona State when Pierce was on the staff there, was the most viable candidate for the Raiders in any such scenario, sources said. During the pre-draft process, Daniels had shown interest in playing for his former coach in Las Vegas, sources said.”
“But the draft’s consensus top quarterbacks, USC’s Caleb Williams, Daniels and North Carolina’s Drake Maye, went 1-2-3 to teams that weren’t moving off their picks, deeming any inquiry futile. Telesco told reporters the team, in the end, did not pursue a trade-up ‘particularly hard.’ ‘Everything else was smoke and mirrors,’ a Las Vegas team source said. ‘We weren’t going to reach or overpay for a QB. Never was a worry and nothing frantic.’” – Jeremy Fowler, ESPN
Tom Telesco sheds light on Raiders not making any draft day trades
The Chicago Bears, Washington Commanders, and New England Patriots all needed to draft a quarterback, which led to Caleb Williams, Daniels, and Drake Maye being the first guys off the board. Las Vegas liked Daniels, but they found out pretty quickly that they had virtually no shot of convincing Washington to move off the second overall pick.
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Still, there were other quarterbacks available that the Raiders could have traded up to take, but they watched Michael Penix Jr., J.J. McCarthy, and Bo Nix all come off the board before they even made their first pick. The lack of trades certainly caught the attention of fans in the aftermath of the draft, and it led to new general manager Tom Telesco addressing why Las Vegas stayed put for all seven rounds of the draft.
“I mean, if you’re in there, second round we were trying to go up pretty hard. Even in the fourth round to come back in, we were trying to go up. But yeah, there’s a little bit of a philosophy behind it that I wouldn’t want to get into here. Maybe down the road I will, but it’s certainly not a philosophy of, ‘Hey, we’re not trading up or down.’ That’s not it at all. But the one thing to do, we really stripped the board down pretty heavily in trying to increase the odds on the player that we take.” – Tom Telesco, Sports Illustrated
The Raiders still managed to bring a solid draft class into town, but it’s tough to understand why they didn’t draft a quarterback at all if they were so interested in Daniels. Whatever the reason may be, Las Vegas still needs to find their quarterback of the future, but they are hoping that the players they added through the 2024 draft will help ease the burden of Aidan O’Connell for the upcoming campaign.
