The Oakland Raiders are coming into the draft with some major needs on both sides of the ball and the team may look to trade down again after doing it last year if players like Sammy Watkins, Jadeveon Clowney and Johnny Manziel are drafted already, as Reggie McKenzie may look at players like Derek Carr, Khalil Mack, Tom Savage and Anthony Barr as potential picks for the team instead.
The Raiders have a number of needs and one of them could be quarterback, but they may want to wait to address that since the position is deep. One player that could be a wild card for the Raiders if the bigger names like AJ McCarron, Zach Mettenberger and Aaron Murray is Tom Savage, the QB from Pitt. According to ESPN.com, Savage visited with the team and he could be an option after being a very accurate QB and going for 2,958 yards with 21 touchdowns and nine interceptions along with a 61 percent completion clip. Another name to watch out for is Carr, who is moving up boards but could be in the mix after passing for 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns last season.
The Raiders had been speculated as a team that could trade a quarterback leading into the draft and they did just that, as McKenzie sent Terrelle Pryor to the Seattle Seahawks for a seventh round pick. Pryor was up and down last season while splitting time with Matt McGloin and he started 11 games during that time and while he was the opening week starter, he never caught on in Dennis Allen's eyes and that is why the team shipped him out. Pryor likely wasn't going to last long anyway, as the team brought in Matt Schaub and McGloin is a much better option as his backup, but that doesn't mean the Raiders won't take another QB in the draft.
The team has met with Manziel as well as Teddy Bridgewater and Blake Bortles, but there is still a good chance they avoid a QB in the first round. There is a chance the team could trade down to add more picks, as they now have just seven overall, but there is prime talent in the top 10 and that is something the Raiders need more of. The team made some major moves in the offseason, signing Justin Tuck, Austin Howard, Maurice Jones-Drew and James Jones, but they need more than that to build a winning team.
The Raiders have seven picks after making the Pryor trade and that followed them trading away their fifth and sixth round picks in deals for Schaub and Matt Flynn, which was another QB deal that didn't work out. This draft is deep and having a second and third round pick early on is important and the team hung onto those and now they have two picks within the top 36 and that is a solid place to be. The team doesn't have any compensatory picks, meaning they could use all of them to trade, as they added the two seventh round picks last year and this year in the Carson Palmer and Pryor deals.
