The Las Vegas Raiders are entering a new era. Or at least, they hope they are. Six sluggish years in their new Nevada home are only the latest chapter in the once-feared franchise’s two decade story of futility. Since moving from Oakland to Nevada’s Sin City, the Raiders have committed the NFL’s cardinal sin â they’ve been boring.
Their Las Vegas era has brought them just one winning season out of six, with a single playoff appearance â and zero wins in playoff games. But it was not the move across state lines that sent the Raiders spiraling into mediocrity. The truth is, the team has not won a playoff game, and have played in only two, since 2002. That was the year of the Raiders’ fifth and, to date, final Super Bowl appearance. They lost that championship game 48-21 to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers â in fact, the Raiders last won a Super Bowl in the 1983 season, the second of their 13 years in Los Angeles.
So what is different now? What is giving the Raiders hope that they can finally put up a performance worthy of their glory days â 1967 through 1985, when they won three Super Bowls, played in four and made the playoffs 15 times?
Raiders Add Future Hall of Famers in Top Roles
They now have a proven, Super Bowl-winning head coach, a certain Hall of Famer, in Pete Carroll. In January, the Raiders signed the 73-year-old coach to a three-year deal. Given Carroll’s brief window, it appears that the Raiders are confident they can turn their fortunes around fast under his leadership.
Equally important, the Raiders took on a new minority owner, one who will be and perhaps already has been given a highly influential voice in guiding the future of the franchise. That new owner is former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
What the Raiders are missing, however, is a quarterback. They could target one in the draft, but the field is thin. Miami’s Cam Ward, generally considered the top quarterback prospect, is expected to be long gone before the Raiders first-round pick (No. 6) comes up. The second-rated QB prospect, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, saw his stock drop significantly after last week’s NFL draft combine.
Trade For Stafford Reportedly Falls Through
According to a report by the Locked On Raiders podcast, the Raiders attempted to engineer a trade for Los Angeles Rams signal-caller Matthew Stafford. But the Rams wanted the Las Vegas first-round or second-round pick in return. The Raiders were willing to offer nothing higher than a third-rounder. So the team whiffed on adding a third future Hall of Famer.
Brady, as is known by anyone who has followed the Brady legend, went on to become the consensus greatest quarterback of all time after he was picked by the New England Patriots in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL draft, with the 199th overall selection.
On Monday, veteran Raiders correspondent Bill Williamson suggested on his SB Nation site Silver and Black Pride, that the Raiders could invoke echoes of Brady by trading for another Patriots quarterback picked in the sixth round, at No. 193 this time.
That would be rocket-armed, 6’5″, 246-pound 25-year-old Joe Milton III, currently slotted in as the Patriots’ backup to their 2024 first-round pick, No. 3 overall, Drake Maye. The Patriots surprised draft watchers by taking Milton after already drafting Maye in 2024. But as he showed in his Week 18 performance against the Buffalo Bills, while Milton may lack polish, his raw athletic talents were simply too enticing to pass up.
Majority in Online Poll Want Milton Trade
Milton, in his junior year at Tennessee, was the Orange Bowl MVP in the Volunteers’ 31-14 victory over the Clemson Tigers, throwing for three touchdowns and 251 yards in that game. Against the Bills in Week 18, Milton tossed for 241 yards and one TD, as well as 14 first downs. He also ran for a touchdown, and did not throw an interception.
Milton, wrote Williamson, “is intriguing. The price tag would likely be a mid-round pick (maybe with some conditions based on production) and Milton is inexpensive with three years left in his rookie contract.” That rookie contract is worth just $4.2 million overall, making Milton an attractive, if “out of the box,” option for the Raiders who offers high upside and low risk.
On his site, Williamson posted a user poll â whose results are of course wholly unscientific. But for what it was worth, 80 percent of poll respondents said that a Raiders trade for Milton would have “big upside.” Only 20 percent said, “let someone else make that mistake.”
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