Silver and Black Pride's Sunday Community Poll: Draft Day 1

With Day 1 of the 2009 NFL Draft having concluded with the Oakland Raiders making two selections, drafting wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey and hard hitting safety Michael Mitchell. Until proven otherwise, ON THE PLAYING FIELD, the Raiders day one of the draft will be known as the r----e----a----c---h.

Upon reflection, I'm of the firm belief that the Raiders did a thorough due diligence on these two players as Tom Cable stated, especially since they will me investing millions of dollars into them. Further, I'm going to have more confidence that the Raiders scouts are better talent evaluators than the talking pin-heads, Mel Kiper Jr, and Mike Mayock.As usual, the Raiders do not care for the consensus, they do things their way, the Raider way.

Remember, this is a draft that Bill Belichick claims was weak and  he completely traded out of the first round. And as far as Crabtree is concerned, something must be up, because nobody traded up to get him when he started to fall. Jacksonville, who needed a receiver as bad as the Raiders did, passed on Crabtree and that should be as telling as anything. I know many in the Nation are fuming at the Raiders choices and how they could have got these players at better value, but they are Raiders now and we must embrace them, as they are now a part of our family.

As I have been stating all along, the Raiders would acquire more picks and end the weekend with more than 5 players drafted. They did well with their trade down with New England, picking up an extra 4th rounder and a 6th, which essentially means that we got Samson Satele for free. I don't think that the Raiders are done yet either, expect some more trading today, as I believe they will try to get another pick in the 3rd round fill their needs with their targeted players.

Here are who I believe the Raiders will be targeting today and I believe at least some of these will be picked by Oakland:

• Jamon Meredith, OT, South Carolina
• Michael Johnson, DE Georgia Tech
• Jarron Gilbert, DT San Jose St
• Alex Magee, DT, Purdue
• Zach Follett, LB, Cal
• Blake Schlueter, C, Texas Christian
• Jared Cook, TE, South Carolina
• Derek Cox, CB, William & Mary
• Russell Allen, LB, San Diego State

Let's reserve judgment for now and go out and have a great day 2 and then immediately hit the un-drafted free agent market,  then see what we've got when the mini-camp's and OTA's start next week.