Q&A WITH LAS VEGAS RAIDERS GENERAL MANAGER MIKE MAYOCK

Interview with Las Vegas Raiders General Manager Mike Mayock

What are some challenges of scouting guys who opted last college season and trying to project where they will be in 2021 after not seeing them on the field for a year? It’s an intriguing question and there is a lot of layers to that. And part of it is just trying to find out why the kid opted out and you can’t discount a kid because he opted out, but you’d like to know why. You look at kids for instance in the PAC-12 or BIG-10, and those conferences were told they weren’t going to play football and a lot of kids went and signed with agents and went to work out. And then several weeks later they came back and said, ‘Woah, wait a minute. We’re going to play some football. And a lot of the kids said, ‘Well, I’d have to pay an agent back money. I’m already getting trained for the draft, it doesn’t make sense.’ You can’t knock them for that. They’re trying to get themselves ready for the next 40 years of their lives, so why did the kid opt out? Did he have sick parents at home? Did he have to get a job? There are some differentiations in that whole opt-out thing that I think you have to get to the root of why did the kid opt out, number one. Then beyond that it comes down to, ‘Okay, no film on him or mid-year opt-out, or bowl opt-out, there’s all kinds of levels of opt-out last year. So, some of these guys you have to go back to 2019 and you got to get on Zoom calls with them. We’ve got our coaches right now watching all the scheme tape and cross-checking our scout evaluations on the college players and a lot of their questions coming up to me like, ‘Why did this kid opt-out? What tape do I go see? Did he play in ’20? Did he play in ’19? So, again, this whole COVID-related draft process, the information gathering is more difficult, but certainly not impossible.

Are there any secondary prospects in the NFL Draft that really impressed you and think would be a good fit for the Raiders? I think in the draft this year, as you said we’ve expanded some resources in our secondary. We’ve got a first round safety in John Abram; we got a second-round corner who we think is going to be a very good football player. We’ve got a fourth-round corner in Amik Robertson, another first-round corner in Damon Arnette and we mentioned Trayvon Mullen in the second who we think is going to be a heck of a player. So, really, what we need more than anything is for all those players to take it up a notch or two. I’m talking about commitment to the game, work ethic, perseverance, being in the locker room working with your brothers. All those things are critical. We’ve expended some draft capital on what we think are some very talented players, and now all of them need to take a collective step forward. So, the draft this year, again, we know we need to get better on defense and we’re going to get after it trying to get better on defense, both in free agency and the draft, but I couldn’t tell you today where we’re going to be on any defensive backs.

What are your thoughts on the top of the pass rusher class this year and how does it compare to recent years? I think the pass rusher class in the first, say three or four rounds, is kind of intriguing and I think there is different flavors in the top-end. I think you can get down into the third or fourth round and find some guys that maybe were at the Senior Bowl and some other places where you go, they’re pretty intriguing role rushers. So, I think my impression coming out of our draft meetings is there is better depth to the outside edge class than I thought there was going to be.

You’ve talked about how different the draft process will be this year, will that be exciting to you with sort of having a new challenge? Yeah, you know what we’ve tried to tell our scouts every day is you can [expletive] and moan about the process all you want and it’s not normal, but our job is to take the process and try to be the best team in the league at whatever it is. You can’t moan and say, ‘We’re not allowed to talk to the players, woah is me.’ Well let’s find a different way to get that information, and we will. We’ll be on 1,000 Zoom calls and we’ll do everything else. What gets me excited though is trying to apply what we learned last year, trying to get better and more than anything you guys remember what we talked about Day 1 when I walked in this building, we talked about foundation players and what’s a Raider fit. And that’s what we want this year, both in free agency and draft. We want to bring the right fit of person into this building and we want to create something special and we think we’re getting close. But no excuses, we’re nowhere near there and we have to get a lot better.

How much promise do you think there is in that the offseason program will be closer to what we know versus being impacted by COVID-19? Here’s what I’d tell you. Technically OTAs and everything are still on. We haven’t gotten any word that they aren’t. We’re preparing for that. I would make a side comment that there’s a lot of talk out there that we don’t need OTAs. That we don’t need preseason games. What I would tell you as an old man is that development of young players is key to the future of this game. We don’t have any kind of developmental league anymore. I know certain veteran players don’t really need OTAs like young players do, but I’m telling you, without OTAs and preseason, trying to get these young players up to speed and at a certain level is really difficult. All 32 teams are going to play under the same rules, I completely understand and appreciate that, but I think anybody that doesn’t think OTAs and preseason games are critically important to the development of our youth aren’t really looking at the picture correctly.

QB | RB | FB | WR | iWR | TE | LT | RT | OG | OC | DT | NG | 3-4 DE | 4-3 DE | 3-4 OLB | 4-3 OLB | ILB | CB | iCB | FS | SS

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