Since Jon Gruden came back to coach the Raiders, he has shown a willingness, even an eagerness to move around the draft via trades. He was busy with trades in his first draft in 2018 including trading down from 10th overall to 15th overall in the first round to pick up a third-round pick, down in the second round to pick up a fifth-round pick and then using a fifth-round pick to move up in the third round.
With a few weeks before the draft opens, the Raiders mostly have no idea to what extent they will make draft-day trades. It all depends on who is on the board when they pick. Though they have surely tossed around a couple scenarios based on projections involving the players they are targeting.
What we can do at this point is look at the value of their picks in terms of what ammo they would have to move around the draft. For that, we use this handy dandy draft value chart.
So, let’s round up the values of each and all of the Raiders’ picks in this draft.
Round 1, pick 12 – (1200)
Round 1, pick 19 – (875)
Round 3, pick 80 – (190)
Round 3, pick 81 – (185)
Round 3, pick 91 – (136)
Round 4, pick 121 – (52)
Round 5, pick 159 – (26.6)
So, let’s see what the values of these picks would allow the Raiders to do. This exercise, of course, would be using only picks in this draft. No current players on the roster or picks from future drafts. And obviously, there are scenarios where the Raiders could give up their whole draft to move up, but I’m choosing to keep my feet on the ground with these scenarios.
We’ll focus either the Raiders jumping up in the first round or getting a pick in the second round.
Trade up in first round
Get pick 3 from Lions for picks 12, 19, 91
Get pick 7 from Panthers for picks 12, 81, 91
Get pick 9 from Jaguars for picks 12, 81
Trade down to get a pick in second round
Send pick 19, 81 to Dolphins for picks 26, 39
Send picks 19, 121 to Ravens for picks 28, 60
Send picks 19, 159 to Titans for picks 29, 61
Send pick 19 to Packers for picks 30, 62
Trade up to get a pick in second round
Get as high as pick 49 from Steelers for picks 80, 81, and 159
Get as high as pick 51 from Cowboys for picks 80, 81
Get as high as pick 57 from Texans for picks 81, 91
