It’s going to be difficult and costly for the Las Vegas Raiders to move up in the 2024 NFL Draft to get a quarterback. Unfortunately for the team, there are three elite quarterback prospects but the first three teams picking in the draft all have a need at the position.
Instead of using a first-round pick to get the fourth or fifth-best quarterback in the draft, the Raiders could hold off and wait to select a quarterback later who has upside. According to CBS Sports’ Josh Edwards, the Raiders are the best fit for former South Carolina quarterback Spencer Rattler.
“The Jimmy Garoppolo experiment is coming to an end in Las Vegas,” Edwards wrote in a February 21 column. “They will bring in competition for Aidan O’Connell, who will be entering his second season with the organization. Rattler seems to have a personality that would appeal to owner Mark Davis. Rattler made the most of a bad situation in Columbia this season having played behind a new offensive line combination essentially every week.”
Rattler was once expected to be the No. 1 pick in the draft before Caleb Williams took his starting job at Oklahoma. He was able to reinvent himself after transferring to South Carolina but not enough to become a first-round pick. That said, he’d be a very interesting player to use a third-round pick on.
Spencer Rattler Has Big Arm
Spencer Rattler has the physical tools to be a good NFL quarterback. He’s got a big arm but isn’t overly athletic. Ian Cummings of Pro Football Network wrote about what Rattler does well.
“As one would expect from a once highly touted recruit, Rattler has near-elite arm talent, concocted from a blend of hefty arm strength and diverse angle freedom,” Cummings wrote in a January 26 column. “He’s a smooth off-platform thrower but also a sound mechanical QB inside the pocket, with good baseline accuracy.
“Also visible on Rattler’s tape are glimpses of promise as a processor. He has the capacity to progress from read to read, as well as react quickly to stimulus after landing on successive reads. He can also place throws to WR leverage, leading receivers for RAC.”
Rattler can force throws and isn’t the most consistent operator in the pocket. There’s a reason he’s no longer considered a first-round pick but there are still enough intriguing traits there for a team to draft him.
Spencer Rattler Is a QB to Take a Swing on in Later Rounds
If a team is going to take a swing on a quarterback in the second or third round, it should be a quarterback who has the physical tools to be great with the right coaching. Spencer Rattle is a smaller quarterback at 6-foot-1 but his arm talent makes him intriguing.
Though he may not end up being a good NFL quarterback, he’s the type of player to take a swing on after the first round. Using a third-round pick on Rattler could be smarter than using a first-round pick on J.J. McCarthy. If he doesn’t work out, whiffing on a third-round pick is easy to come back from. Whiffing on a first-round pick gets general managers fired.
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