Raiders get CeeDee Lamb, pass on a falling Tua Tagovailoa

PFT’s Peter King (still not used to saying PFT instead of SI) posted a mock draft on Monday, with a few interesting rumors sprinkled in. With the Las Vegas Raiders, he has what most people have: a receiver and a cornerback.

12. Las Vegas—CeeDee Lamb, wide receiver, Oklahoma

Maybe the toughest call I had to make Sunday evening, having the Raiders bypass Tua Tagovailoa for Lamb. I did it because I keep hearing both Mike Mayock and Jon Gruden are intrigued with new backup Marcus Mariota; adding Tagovailoa might be the best thing for 2023, but it’s not so great for 2020. But they could do it. As for Lamb: Mayock loves him, thinks he’s the most complete receiver in the draft, and even though I think Gruden likely would prefer the take-the-top-off speed of Henry Ruggs, he’s happy to have a true number one receiver who can win consistently against NFL-caliber corners.

Lamb is the top receiver for many draft-loving folks. King has him going over Jerry Jeudy, who goes 15 to the Denver Broncos, a team rumored to be very interested in Jeudy.

19. Las Vegas—Kristian Fulton, cornerback, LSU

After the first two corners go, the rest are in a hug mosh pit. Fulton is a PFF darling, rated the 12th-best player in the draft—ahead of C.J. Henderson, Derrick Brown and Javon Kinlaw—and trailing only Jeff Okudah in the cornerback class. He falls into the class of player GM Mike Mayock loves: big-time player in a national championship program, though some have been down on him for cheating on a drug test, which led to a one-year ban in 2017. He’d be the kind of competitive and tested player Jon Gruden loves.

With Fulton, the Raiders get a CBOTF. It’s interesting to see that Henry Ruggs III was still on the board here for King, who has the Philadelphia Eagles selecting Ruggs at 21. What a nice surprise for them. King also mentions that the Kansas City Chiefs want to trade up for Ruggs, but only if he falls into the twenties. Interestingly though, he didn’t make that trade for the Chiefs in his own mock. Perhaps he felt that the Eagles would not bypass the chance to draft Ruggs.

I did a mock draft on Sunday with three friends and we came away with Henry Ruggs at 12 and Xavier McKinney at 19 for the Raiders. I would say that Lamb/Fulton is the preferable option between those two, but really nobody knows at this point. You can listen to the full mock draft right here: