Kansas City Chiefs: Post-free agency, full AFC West mock draft

Las Vegas Raiders

Number of Draft Picks: 7

When the Raiders come on the clock for the first time since officially relocating to Las Vegas, the team will be faced with whether to draft the best wide receiver prospect in a draft brimming with such prospects, or to grab the second-best cornerback prospect while selecting a wide receiver several spots later.

I have the team going the latter route, bypassing on Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb for Florida’s C.J. Henderson, a 27-game starter for the Gators. He’s not on par with Ohio State’s Jeff Okudah, who went No. 3 in this mock draft to Detroit, but he’s the next best thing.

For a team yearning for secondary help, especially in a division with Patrick Mahomes leading the Kansas City Chiefs – and, to a lesser extent, Drew Lock in charge of the Denver Broncos – Henderson is the best match.

Thankfully for Las Vegas, the team’s on the clock again rather quickly and there are still plenty of wide receivers from which to choose, including LSU’s Justin Jefferson and, rather surprisingly, Alabama’s Jerry Jeudy.

I’ve got the Raiders going Jeudy, the twitchy 6-foot-1, 192-pounder who caught 77 passes for 1,163 yards and ten touchdowns last season after hauling in 68 receptions for 1,315 yards and 14 touchdowns the prior season.

Dude’s a playmaker, and Jon Gruden, Mike Mayock, and whoever’s under center for the Raiders when the season begins will be happy to have him.

After sitting out the second round, the Raiders have three picks in the third round, including back-to-back picks at Nos. 80 and 81. Here, the Raiders have plenty of options from which to choose, including offensive tackle, interior defensive line, another cornerback, safety, and even quarterback.

The quarterback at this point is Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts, but I don’t see him as a true option for a Raiders team that needs help at several other positions and already has two veteran quarterbacks on the roster.

Instead, the Raiders will – in either order – address the interior defensive line while grabbing a safety. Missouri’s Jordan Elliott is still on that board, but he won’t make it to pick No. 82. Elliott’s a 6-foot-4, 315-pound behemoth who made 44 total tackles for the Tigers in 2019, 8.5 of them for loss.

With the next pick, the Raiders select Utah safety Terrell Burgess, who made a whopping 81 tackles last season, including 7.5 for loss. The rangy safety also picked off one pass, defended five passes, and recovered two fumbles.

This next pick is my absolute favorite of this mock draft: Randy Moss‘s son is heading to the Raiders!

Thaddeus Moss won a National Championship with LSU last season. In the process, he caught 47 passes for 570 yards and four touchdowns from No. 1 overall pick Joe Burrow. Moss had a great playoff, and that’s enough to catapult the 6-foot-3, 225-pound redshirt sophomore into getting drafted on the second day.

In the fourth round, the Raiders will consider two players in particular: linebacker Evan Weaver from California and EDGE Kenny Willekes from Michigan State. Gruden will opt for the ex-Spartan, as that worked so well last year for the Raiders with Maxx Crosby.

The Raiders will be looking to strike gold again with Willekes, who racked up ten sacks last year and had 23.5 in his career. What’s more, he also had 15.5 tackles for loss in 2019, giving him a total of 49 for his career.

With the team’s final pick – which comes in the fifth round – the Raiders select a linebacker, Markus Bailey out of Purdue. Bailey measures in at 6-1, 240 pounds. After starting 38 games between 2016-2018 before being limited to just two games last season due a couple of knee injuries. He’s worth a Day Three pick.