Las Vegas Raiders: Is John Brown’s arrival bad news for Henry Ruggs?

The Las Vegas Raiders made the bold move to draft Alabama wide receiver Henry Ruggs as the top receiver off the board in the 2020 NFL Draft. They took Ruggs over players like Jerry Jeudy, CeeDee Lamb, Tee Higgins, Michael Pittman Jr., Laviska Shenault, and Chase Claypool.

(Arguably) All of those players mentioned had bigger year one impacts than Ruggs, who struggled as a rookie to find his footing.

He caught just 26 passes for 452 yards and two touchdowns in 13 games for the Raiders. Taking Ruggs over Jeudy and Lamb, in particular, was a highly debatable topic a year ago at this time, but of course, time will tell if the Raiders made the right choice.

It had to be tough to see Lamb and Jefferson, in particular, completely set the league ablaze as rookies with Jefferson racking up 1,400 yards with the Minnesota Vikings.

Although everyone in Las Vegas is certainly (and rightfully) keeping high hopes for the class of 2020’s WR1, they made a move that may cast some doubt for those on the outside about the team’s internal feelings on Ruggs.

Las Vegas Raiders bring in John Brown

The Las Vegas Raiders lost Nelson Agholor in free agency to the New England Patriots. Agholor took a one-year “prove-it” deal with the Raiders last offseason and parlayed that into a nice contract with the Patriots.

If you don’t count tight end Darren Waller, Agholor was the Raiders’ WR1 (in terms of targets) in the 2020 season with 82 targets resulting in 48 receptions for 896 yards and eight touchdowns.

Hunter Renfrow led the team in receptions and remains one of Derek Carr’s favorite targets out of the slot, so with Ruggs and fellow 2020 rookie Bryan Edwards expected to take steps forward in their sophomore seasons, why would the Raiders sign former Buffalo Bills wide receiver John Brown to a one-year contract for nearly $4 million?

The optimist is thinking, why would the Raiders not pick up Brown? The more weapons, the merrier.

The skeptic or pessimist might be thinking, why would the Raiders pick up Brown? He’s going to eat into Henry Ruggs’ snaps and targets and both guys serve the same function.

The Las Vegas Raiders would love for their offensive weapon group to just become an embarrassment of riches. Derek Carr is going to favor Darren Waller and rightfully so. He’s got another safety valve in Hunter Renfrow and the Raiders brought in Kenyan Drake, likely with the intention of featuring him in the passing game as well.

Even dating back to his time with the Alabama Crimson Tide, Henry Ruggs did not require a high volume of targets in order to be one of the most effective and efficient playmakers in the country.

With that being said, when you take a guy as the WR1 of an entire class of prospects that was absolutely loaded at the position, you expect that player to be a significant impact on your team.

Maybe we’ll look back at this post in six months and all have a good laugh because Ruggs set the league ablaze.

The thing is, can you blame the skeptics for thinking that Brown is going to seriously cut into Ruggs’ role? Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock straight up cut Lynn Bowden last season before he even played for the team, a pretty high third-round selection.

Not that Gruden and Mayock would cut Ruggs, but if you don’t think Gruden would play the veteran Brown over Ruggs to the point that Ruggs is almost an afterthought in the Las Vegas Raiders target share, I think you’re mistaken there.

Hopefully, in six months, we are able to have a good laugh at this. Everyone wants to see Ruggs do well and undoubtedly nobody more so than the Raiders.

Still, the addition of John Brown does make you wonder what they’re doing and what they’re planning.