We recently looked at who the Oakland Raiders could have taken in the first round other than cornerback Gareon Conley, who played just two games last season after being the No. 24 overall pick due to injuries. Oakland’s second-round pick, safety Obi Melifonwu, suffered a similarly rough rookie season. The Connecticut product played just five
Who the Raiders could have taken other than Obi Melifonwu?
These last two articles have been fun to speculate but a lot of the production from these other guys comes from the scheme of the defense. Neither of our draft picks played enough to be able to tell for sure whether they were a good pic or not maybe this year we’ll see if our guys can hang. One thing’s for sure, Chucky is going to demand more of them. He already stated that we need some of the young guys drafted recently to step up and start playing in a big way. I have hopes for gareon Conley but I wasn’t that big on drafting Obi.
I though we where going to take Cunningham, because as stated, we needed a MLB and still do.
I am hopeful we can find a way to bring back Bowman if for nothing else but a great backup option and teacher. I know Bowman would likely start and a rookie MLB would learn. That being the best case scenario.
I did not think Melifonwu was an enormous reach though. I was hopeful he would learn from Nelson and move into the starting spot at FS this year. Obviously that is unlikely to happen due to injuries and almost no playing time. I saw him as someone who could help to slow down opposing TEs like Kelce.
Hopefully Guenther and Ansley can make Conley and Melifonwu into key contributors. Even though both are essentially rookies.