Oakland Raiders 2018 re-draft: Fixing Gruden’s first class

The Oakland Raiders aren’t the only team who might be kicking themselves for some of the picks they made in the 2018 NFL Draft.

The jury is still out on most of the 2018 NFL Draft class. We’re only one year in, for crying out loud. But even early on it’s possible to tell whether or not certain teams may have made some mistakes or did some over-thinking.

The Oakland Raiders are no exception.

The Raiders’ 2018 class was the first in the new Jon Gruden era for Oakland. What Raiders fans and maybe even Gruden himself didn’t know at the time was just a few months later, the man in control would trade two of his superstar players — Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper — for 2019 draft capital.

The importance of this draft class can’t be overstated for the future of the Raiders, although it’s already been overshadowed by the huge 2019 class which featured three first-round picks and another high second rounder.

Here are the players the Raiders grabbed in 2018, Gruden’s first class after re-joining the team on a 10-year contract.

1. Kolton Miller, OT, UCLA
2. PJ Hall, DL, Sam Houston State
3a. Brandon Parker, OT, North Carolina A&T
3b. Arden Key, DE, LSU
4. Nick Nelson, CB, Wisconsin
5a. Maurice Hurst, DL, Michigan
5b. Johnny Townsend, P, Florida
6. Azeem Victor, LB, Washington
7. Quinton Bell, DE, Prairie View 

Again, the purpose of this article is not to count any of these guys out of having a solid NFL career, but with some of the players that were still on the board, the Raiders’ 2018 class could have been a lot better and more impactful in the long run.

I’m going to focus on just the top three picks of this class — Kolton Miller, PJ Hall, and Brandon Parker — for the re-draft exercise.

Let’s see what could have been…