Raiders GM Tom Telesco Addresses NFL Draft, Philosophy

New Las Vegas Raiders General Manager Tom Telesco addresses the NFL Draft and how being in the difficult AFC West impacts his philosophy.

HENDERSON, Nev.--The Las Vegas Raider's new General Manager, Tom Telesco, comes from the Silver and Black AFC West rival, the Los Angeles Chargers, so he doesn't need to learn that the competitive division has to be in his mind when it comes time for the NFL Draft.

Appearing on the Sunset Rewind, Telesco said, “We’ve gone all the way back and checked with high school coaches, and how they were. Typically, when it comes to the evaluation of a player, we are really just looking at their college tape. Whether the freshman to senior year or freshman to junior year. We will have scouts to go back to their high schools and do a bit of.”

Telesco explained, “We try to compile as much information as we can; we don’t like any surprises when we bring players in, so we want to know what we have. I’ve told these high school kids that everybody that you treat from high school could come back.”

The new Raiders GM dug deeper, adding, “Your coaches, your teachers, your administrators, these are big investments for us, and we want to know everything that we can about the player.”

Telesco then pivoted to explaining his philosophy on the NFL Draft.

He thoroughly explained how much the AFC West plays into his thinking when making the Raiders picks, “You definitely take that into account (AFC West); if you win your division, you are automatically in the playoffs, and you have a home game.”

Coming from the Los Angeles Chargers, new Las Vegas Raiders GM Tom Telesco has an NFL Draft philosophy with them in mind / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

He elaborated, “Where Kansas City is, you always know about (Patrick) Mahomes. Now with Jim Harbaugh here we know the style of football they are going to play, and we have Sean Payton in the division, so it is a tough division, so yeah, we do look at those teams, we play them twice.”

Telesco then said something that should inspire Raiders Nation. “We want to make sure that they have to defend us. It’s kind of both ways, but the big thing in the draft for us is that there is accumulating players, accumulating talent, or building a team. We want to make sure that we are building a team. So it’s not necessarily just drafting the best players, what fits us. What fits us on offense? What fits us on defense? But some of that is who are we playing against twice a year, and we’ve got these three teams in our division so it (AFC West) definitely comes into it. ” 

From February 27 to March 4, 2024, the NFL Scouting Combine will be held at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind.

The NFL Draft will be held in Detroit, Mich., on April 25-27, 2024. The Las Vegas Raiders currently hold the No. 13 overall pick.

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