During the draft, players are either deemed reaches or steals or simply the right pick at the right time. Ideally, if a team is truly drafting the players they consider to be the best available at any position, they should find themselves getting players who most analysts thought would have come off the board by then.
One popular way to find a reasonable idea of where a player ranks among the rest of the draft class is to collect a large sample size of ‘big boards’ or mock drafts and put together a consensus.
In those terms, the Raiders came out very favorable in their class according to Warren Sharp. With regard to comparing where the Raiders took a player versus where their average position in mock drafts, they had the fourth-best value class.
best value NFL draft classes:
1. Carolina Panthers
2. Green Bay Packers
3. Kansas City Chiefs
4. Las Vegas Raiders
5. Seattle Seahawks
6. New York Jets
7. Baltimore Ravens
8. Arizona Cardinals
9. Philadelpha Eagles
10. Atlanta Falconssee pic for 1-32 plus methodology pic.twitter.com/JbFjPEWN1Y
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) April 30, 2022
The players who helped raise the Raiders’ draft class value the most were fifth-round pick DT Matthew Butler and seventh-round pick OT Thayer Munford.
best and worst value picks, by round: pic.twitter.com/IsNqHxMzyf
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) May 1, 2022
Butler’s consensus draft position was 129 (round 4) and the Raiders got him at 175 (round five), a difference of 46 spots. Munford was selected at pick 238 (round seven) while the consensus had him being selected at 158 (round five); a difference of 80 spots.
Does this mean these guys were ‘steals’? Hard to say at this point. It would seem to raise the possibility that the Raiders raised the chances they may have gotten at least a couple of players who are better than their draft position would suggest.
