Solid 2026 Draft Haul Proves 1 Thing About Raiders

The Las Vegas Raiders are on a roll this offseason. Las Vegas has put together one of its best offseasons in recent memory by making quality roster additions.

Raiders' Long List of Moves

Las Vegas walked away from the draft with two handfuls of players they can develop over the first few seasons of Klint Kubiak's tenure. This should allow the Raiders to naturally grow over time.

Raiders assistant General Manager Brian Stark recently gave insight into the front office's draft process.

"There's a group of us that'll be in there together, and we've all kind of watched a lot of these players independently, and then we watched them together as a group. So, John [Spytek] is great about encouraging everyone to speak up, and everyone's very confident to give their opinions on the players,” Stark said after the second day of the draft.

“And what it kind of does is it allows Spy to hear us kind of work through the differences maybe we saw in the player, and then he can kind of compare that to his vision of the player when he watched him,” Stark said.

What Their Moves Say

It is rare that a team makes as many moves in free agency and selects as many draft picks as the Raiders did all in one offseason. Yet, the fact that they did, and how they did, says a lot about Las Vegas' front office, much of which joined with Spytek last offseason, his first at the helm.

The fact that the Raiders added the number of free agents they did, along with 10 additional draft picks, and that each player has the potential to make an impact at some level, speaks volumes. Las Vegas has shuffled through multiple general managers and head coaches over the past few seasons.

This has led to many different ideas about how to build out their roster from those different regimes. None of those regimes is still around, having left a roster full of thrown-together parts that do not fit, which has led to nearly 30 losses in the past two seasons. That will not be the case for long.

Under Spytek and his team of front office members, it is clear the Raiders' front office is on the same page. This is not a guarantee in front offices across the league, and has reportedly been far from the case for the Raiders in recent years, as the on-field results can confirm.

Every move the Raiders made in free agency made sense. The same can be said about their draft haul. Las Vegas added 10 players who can all contribute to their rebuilding process over the next few years. Each pick the Raiders made served a purpose on the roster. There were no wasted picks.

Time will tell whether those picks pan out, but it is clear that the Raiders' front office and scouting team conducted a thorough process. Las Vegas' solid draft haul and productive offseason are about more than just Spytek or Stark; it confirms the Raiders' front office, as a whole, is one.

“It really allows us to come to a consensus, to where we all kind of have an understanding for how that player, where his value ranks among the other players available, and the vision for them to fit with our roster,” Stark said.

"So I think it's just a it's a big collaborative process. Now specifically, Brandon Yeargan, our college director, and I, a lot of times, are working closely with the college scouts who aren't here all the time. So a lot of times we kind of serve as the mouthpiece for the college scouts too when they're not available to be in those meetings."

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