The 2020 NFL Draft of the Las Vegas Raiders was the first NFL Draft not in Oakland since the team moved to Los Angeles in 1982 before returning in 1995. The 2020 NFL Draft for the Raiders was marked by selecting Alabama’s speedy wide receiver Henry Ruggs III, and then with a controversial selection that’s become a Mike Mayock speciality: Ohio State’s defensive back Damon Arnette.
Raiders GM Mike Mayock Discusses Drafting Henry Ruggs III And Damon Arnette – Transcript
Mike Mayock: We feel like the Raiders the Las Vegas Raiders got faster we got tougher and we got more competitive tonight. We got the wide receiver at pick number 12: he’s the fastest wide out in the draft. We got the corner at number 19: did an awful lot of work on him, spend a lot of time. I did school visits there this year too both of both places, and I feel like I know both kids really well. So John and I could not be more pleased. The coaches are fired up. The scouts are fired up. So and trust me, Mr. Davis, when we went and took the fastest slide out the draft, Mr. Davis said that his father was looking down and smiling. So let’s open it up to some questions.
Moderator: Okay guys you guys you guys can go ahead and jump in just please please mute your line if you’re not asking a question.
Question: thank you hey Micah said Josh do you bow with a P just keep I’m the decision on rugs I was into a lot of talk of the three receivers what what made him stand out from the other two guys at the top?
Mike Mayock: yeah all three wide receivers we felt were diverse and would bring different things to the Raiders and we I feel like coach Gruden and that offensive staff is so good they could have gotten the most out of all three of them however you know that the state distinguishing factor really was his speed his explosion and his work ethic when you’re in the division we’re in and you look at Kansas City and you look at what they have on offense and what their explosion looks like we needed to get faster and we think that his addition opens up our entire offense he can run the deep routes he also gets the manufactured touches the bubble screens the jet sweeps I think if you force defense is to roll coverage it opens up our run game you respect our deep routes it opens up Darren Waller I just think it does an awful lot of things for us offensively and I think the most important thing is I think coach Gruden and the staff will get everything out of him
Question: Hey my father chair is here from ESPN you said last week that teams make mistakes by reaching for need why is Arnett not a reach for you guys at that position? what what exactly about him did you like?
Mike Mayock: No it’s not a reach. He’s not a because in our system, did I think we could have moved down maybe and still got a maybe, but we want to lose them what distinguishes him is number one he can run number two he’s tough as nails and when you talk about competitors he played most of the season with a capstone his arm. He can play inside, he can play outside. He can play left (cornerback). He can play right(cornerback). We just feel like this is one of the most competitive football players in the entire draft so to answer your question we don’t feel at all like it was a reach but were you ever closer to either spot it and training down or was it or there’s not opportunity there we did not initiate any calls but we had a bunch of calls tonight from teams that wanted to move up at different times for specific players we wanted to sit there and take runs at 12 and we did we probably could have moved down if we wanted to at 19, but again we hung in there. When we took the guy we wanted to take, so we did not initiate any trade calls tonight, but we did get several call like another like last year, you you’re taking guys from from programs that were pretty successful.
Question: is that something there’s an important factor for you guys just the program do you guys come from
Mike Mayock: it doesn’t have to be but there’s certainly a sense of security when you’re you’re watching film and you understand the level of competition and you can put on SEC championship games you can put on Big Ten championship games the fact that both these kids come out of those kinds of programs and those kinds of T is awesome and I just think it especially in a year like this where you don’t get all the verified numbers and you know there’s more questions out there I think we felt outstanding about both these kids the level of competition how many games they’ve played for these teams there’s an awful lot of tape on both these kids
Question: hey Mike this is Jesse from NBC in Las Vegas before the draft who talked to you a lot about just to being a virtual draft and kind of what challenges it was posed how’d the first round go for you guys and was there anything that maybe popped up that you didn’t expect?
Mike Mayock: The first round went really smoothly and I’m not gonna lie to you I’ve spent way more time on Zoom and Microsoft teams and things I never heard of Oh we’ve probably drilled our trade routine for the last four or five days where every night I would have a group of my Scouts a better in different states we had an analytics guy David Christoph we had a city atlas one of our scouts Trey Scott Jon Gruden we had a bunch of people on the line and we drilled and drilled and drilled on these trades and it really worked out we had several times where we had two or three teams on the line. We have no glitches. We’re able to get the information smoothly, got the information easily. We feel like we’re real happy with where our numbers are. Our stacks are so knock on wood. It went well tonight. It’ll get more and more complicated as we get less and less time between picks.
Stay tuned.