Through the first year-and-a-half of Gareon Conely’s career, it appeared the Raiders whiffed massively on their first-round pick from the 2017 draft. Conley struggled to stay on the field, and even when he played, his play was less than impressive. For a few weeks, it appeared Conley was the next former first-round pick that was going to be traded.
However, Conley was able to turn his career around in the second half of the 2018 season. He quickly became one of the league’s best cornerbacks and turned into the player Oakland hoped when they selected him.
In a recent piece by NFL.com, Ali Bhanpuri graded every first-round pick from the 2017 draft. Oakland received a “C” grade for the selection of Coney due to his poor performance in the 18 months of his career. Check out a snippet of Bhanpuri’s explanation for the grade below:
From Week 8 until the end of the regular season, Conley started every game and allowed the fifth-fewest yards among CBs (min. 200 snaps). That span included two separate meetings with the Chiefs, whom he limited to just 26 total yards on three catches, per PFF. With the good finally starting to outweigh the bad in Conley’s young career, there’s plenty of reason to believe the best is yet to come for No. 21.
For the Raiders’ defense to take the next step, they need their star cornerback to continue to play at the level we saw in the second half of the season. Conley has the chance to be a Pro Bowl selection this season, provided he can stay healthy.
