NFL.com revives the Raiders wanted Matt Barkley rumor

I find it very strange that NFL.com has gone from touting Tyler Wilson as unseating Matt Flynn and Terrelle Pryor and becoming a rookie starter to mentioning months after the draft that the Raiders may have wanted Matt Barkley instead.

For those that need the reminder it was the beginning of the 4th round and the Raiders had the 3rd pick in the round. The Eagles decided that they wanted Barkley and traded ahead of Oakland to nab the USC QB. In response to that the Raiders traded farther back and ended up still drafting a QB, this time in Arkansas QB Tyler Wilson. NFL.com would like to remind everybody that the Raiders wanted Barkley, and they also want to speculate that had they drafted Matt that he would be the leader in the QB competition.

The first odd thing about this story is that they are recycling old news. This was already talked about at draft time plenty and there is no reason to randomly bring this up again now. Especially because it is unverified old news with no new developments.

Even more odd is they suggest Matt Barkley would be the current frontrunner for the starting job. Nobody has any idea how he would have performed here in Oakland and there is no way to prove that he would be leading any competition here. He would be in the same position as Wilson, a 4th round rookie with potential that would be fighting to overtake the $6 million off-season acquisition -- Matt Flynn.

To say Barkley “might have been riding high as the clubhouse leader in Oakland” is a direct hit at the current Raiders quarterbacks. Even if Barkley came in and was absolutely amazing there still would not have been enough time gone by for him to have been the clubhouse leader. Matt Flynn was named the first team quarterback before OTA's, and has been given a vote of confidence by the Reggie McKenzie and Dennis Allen.

There wouldn't have been any chance that McKenzie and Allen would have somehow already deemed trading for Flynn a mistake and that anybody else was considered the starter this early. Not because a 4th round rookie had a few good days anyway, If that were to happen, it wouldn't be until at least training camp and only if the rookie played well consistently for the Raiders to make that change.

The article also focuses greatly on the two bad days the Raiders QB's had in OTA's and minicamp, while ignoring the decent QB play that was reported the final two days of minicamp directly after those negative reports came out. After all, that would go against the half-baked idea that Barkley would be the leader in the clubhouse and frontrunner in the competition already.