The Raiders officially ended the Davante Adams saga this week by sending their disgruntled wide receiver to the New York Jets for a third-round pick.
There are scenarios where the third-round pick could turn into a second-round pick, but highly unlikely parameters would have to be met. In the event those parameters are met, the second-round pick the Raiders receive would probably be at the very end of the second round.
In other words, the Raiders are unlikely in any scenario to get more than a late second-round pick for Adams.
By most accounts, the Raiders did pretty well to get a third-round pick for Davante Adams, but could they have done better?
We might never know if GM Tom Telesco could have gotten a second-round pick, but the consensus among The Athletic beat writers this week was that the team owner chose to hold onto money in exchange for a lesser draft pick from the Jets.
These are the highlights of the conversation between Vic Tafur, Ted Nguyen and Tashan Reed…
“I don’t want to speak for Mark [Davis], but it sounds like it was a matter of principle,” Tafur said on the Just Win podcast. “I’m not paying a guy that doesn’t want to be here.”
“I think that’s what’s silly, especially with a team that needs as much help as the Raiders need,” Reed responded. “People might say, “Is there really that much difference between a third and a second?’ The answer is yes… I think it was a misstep, but maybe it doesn’t matter in the long run. Maybe they get their quarterback, anyway, and we all forget this by this time next year.”
“To me, it was just a pride thing,” Nguyen added. “This is the stuff that holds your franchise back when you’re making moves like this. The margins in the NFL are so small and when you can’t get that second-round pick and it goes down a third because of pride, it hurts your team.”
It will be interesting to see how the season plays out, but if the Jets (2-4) end the season in catastrophe, the Raiders probably missed an opportunity to add an early second-round pick. We can’t know for sure if a second-round pick was on the table, but some of the closest people to the team seem to think the opportunity was there.
