When the Las Vegas Raiders decided to take one of the most athletic guys in the entire 2025 NFL Draft class, based on RAS scores anyways, it was clear that Darien Porter was going to be the next lab rat for Pete Carroll, in which he famously turns large, athletic, long defensive backs into stars.
With the Seattle Seahawks, Carroll turned Richard Sherman and a ton of other guys into good football players, taking advantage of their physical gifts. These are all defensive backs who are much bigger than the position they play, but have physical traits like speed or long arms that help them still excel despite being bigger than the average size.
Porter will be in the same box. He's much bigger than the average CB at 6'4", but still somehow ran a 4.30 40 yard dash. He also has extrenly long arms, which will help when defending passes and playing the ball in the air.
But also, he has an advantage that not every CB has -- the kid played wide receiver in college, and is only just now learning how to play CB over the last year or so.
“Taking that knowledge I learned from playing offense to the defensive side helps me pre-snap pick up on things that the offense might be doing. So, I definitely use that to my advantage as well,” Porter said during rookie minicamp.
But he knows that there is still a lot of work to be done.
“I think just getting comfortable with the technique. Like I said, I never really played the position, so I was kind of learning it as I was going, but really emphasizing the techniques at cornerback. I took a lot of strides, and I think I'm in a really good spot now, but continuing to learn more, too."
This was a Pete Carroll pick all the way, as John Spytek, when he was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, wasn't really known for doing things like this, at least not like Carroll is known for doing them. Porter has insane potential, and if he can catch on at the NFL level, the Raiders' defense could truly get scary.
Playing wide receiver has helped him know how to read what his opponent is going to do. And that's good enough to have an edge over your opponent.
