Top draft picks are overvalued. There’s no guarantee you’ll get the best guy, but there is a guarantee that you’ll have to pay him like one.

Analysis shows that teams draft the correct player 52%, or slightly more than half, of the time. That isn’t because they’re stupid, it’s because there is no way to know. There are rare years where there is a near-sure-thing (Elway, Manning, Luck, Lawrence) but again, those are rare.

Look at where some of the better QBs playing today were drafted and you’ll see that the QBs drafted 1st are rarely the best.

Patrick Mahomes was drafted 10th. Mitch Trubisky went 2nd that year.

Josh Allen was drafted 7th. Baker Mayfield was the 1st player drafted that year, Sam Darnold 3rd. Josh Rosen went #10 that year. Lamar Jackson was taken 32nd that year.

In 2020 they got it right, when Burrow went 1st. Then Tagavailoa went 5 and Herbert 6. We could argue that Herbert is better, but jump down past Jordan Love at pick 26 and find Jalen Hurts with pick 53.

2022 is the prime example: Kenny Pickett, Desmond Ritter, Malik Willis, Matt Corral, Bailey Zappe, Sam Howell, Chris Oladokun, and Skylar Thompson were all drafted before Brock Purdy was taken with pick 262.

Dak Prescott was taken 135th overall in a year where Jared Goff went 1 and Carson Wentz 2. Paxton Lynch was 26, and Christian Hackenburg, Jacoby Brissett, Cody Kessler, and Connor Cook all went before Prescott.

2015 Jameis Winston was the #1 overall pick, Marcus Mariota #2

2019 Kyler Murray was #1 overall pick. Daniel Jones was #6. Both have been failures. Gardner Minshew, by no means a great QB, was taken with pick 178, and you can argue he’d have done at least as well as either Murray or Jones. Even if you disagree there, I think it’s a given that those were wasted draft picks.

The best two QBs to ever play the game?

Joe Montana, drafted 82nd overall
Tom Brady, drafted 199th overall

I’m surprised Penix is the choice. He’s had 4 season-ending injuries in his college career so far, including two ACL tears.

Nothing against him, but I don’t think he’s the answer at coach. Maybe if the team were a consistent winner we could take a flyer on him, but for a team that has had only a couple good years in the past 2+ decades, I think Davis needs to finally hire a coach with a proven track record, and build a staff around him that can win.

Look around the league at the teams that are consistent winners and you’ll see that they don’t promote a linebacker coach with 1 season of NFL coaching experience to head coach. While that DOES seem exactly like the sort of thing the Raiders would do, it isn’t a wise move. You don’t want someone with no experience learning on the job, especially not when your team has been the league doormat for as long as the Raiders have been.

I think the Raiders either need to go the experience route like the Chiefs, Broncos, etc. and bring in Jim Harbaugh, or another coach with a lot of experience and a history of success, or go the young mastermind route, like the Rams, Dolphins, 49ers, Eagles, Lions, etc., and make a play for Ben Johnson, or someone similar.

They should not do the “let’s give this random guy a shot” method, and they definitely shouldn’t do the “he was on Belichick’s staff” method.

O-line played great, and our secondary did its job. The defense held an offense that had been averaging 32 points per game to 20 points, and did that with next to no support from the offense. They also took the ball away 3 times. That is much on the secondary as any other defensive unit.

The play-calling wasn’t bad, either. O’Connell simply couldn’t make a lot of the throws. He missed open men many times, and threw a very bad interception. I don’t think Garoppolo would have looked much worse.

I know some of you don’t want to hear this, but could you imagine this team with Carr at QB? Unstoppable.

Unless he wins the Super Bowl, the Raiders need to bring in a new team, preferably once with experience.

You can’t credit him for getting Adams. He was coming here no matter what. Spillane was a solid acquisition, O’Connell hopefully is, too, but we have no idea yet. Overall, he was a major failure as a GM, and we’re better off without him.

The Lions are having their way with the AFC West. They’re 3-0 against the Chiefs, Raiders, and Chargers, and will hopefully make a clean sweep of it later this season when they play the Broncos.