Oakland Raiders: Exploring a few potential Draft Day trade scenarios
By Kevin Saito
New England Patriots
Yeah, the last thing you want to do is help Bill Belichick and New England get better, but, this is a business. And since the Raiders and Patriots already did a deal this offseason, with Oakland sending Cordarrelle Patterson to New England in exchange for their fifth-round pick, they could very well find a trade partner in Belichick again.
With Tom Brady turning 40 –“ and having traded away assets like Jacoby Brissett and Jimmy Garoppolo — the Patriots are left without a successor. And they’re believed to be looking for him this year.
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The only problem is that New England’s first pick in the first-round, doesn’t come until number twenty-three — courtesy of the trade that sent Brandin Cooks to the Rams.
Twenty-three might be really pushing it in terms of getting a guy they need — somebody like a Maurice Hurst or Vita Vea. But, they could still land a guy like Daron Payne, who hasn’t seemed to have generated a ton of pre-Draft hype, but could be very effective in DC Paul Guenther’s system.
And if they were able to land a talent like Payne at twenty-three, and still add a little more draft capital, all the better.
In doing a deal with New England (who are believed to be very high on Lamar Jackson, but who knows if that’s actually true) GM Reggie McKenzie could potentially do a better deal than with either Los Angeles or Arizona.
If the price tag for moving up to ten is the other team’s second-round pick (and again, we use that model for expediency, as teams can obviously do multi-pick deals and it’s highly unlikely McKenzie could squeeze Belichick for both of New England’s first-rounders), the Raiders would be able to move up to number forty-three overall.
If they did a deal with Belichick and the Patriots, they’d be picking twenty-third, forty-first, and forty-third overall. Which could mean they don’t get the top pick on their board, but still a decent group of players to stock the roster with.