A day after the Las Vegas Raiders drafted edge rusher Tyree Wilson from Texas Tech, general manager Dave Ziegler, assistant GM Champ Kelly, and head coach Josh McDaniels were back to work for the second day of the NFL Draft for the second and third rounds.
The Raiders, originally slated to draft at the No. 38 spot, traded up to No. 35 with Indianapolis for the 38th pick and the 141st pick in the fifth round. Clearly, they saw a player they didn’t want to lose.
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Las Vegas Raiders select Michael Mayer in second round
As a result, the Silver and Black chose tight end Michael Mayer from Notre Dame.
Mayer, who stands at 6-foot-4 and weighs 249 pounds, comes to Las Vegas as one of the top tight ends in the draft and joins a wide open depth chart following the trade that sent Darren Waller out last month.
Ziegler said Mayer was one of the best players available early in the second round with the opportunity to run routes and block for the running backs.
“He’s one of the top 15 players on our board, in terms of totality,” Ziegler said to the media Friday evening. “A really unique thing about him, I’d say, is his short-area quickness. He’s a bigger guy but when you watch the tape, he has the ability to win in a short area, can win on third down, use his size down in the red zone, obviously has some size to continue develop as a run blocker.”
Mayer recorded 67 receptions for 809 yards and nine touchdowns for the Fighting Irish in 2022, including a season-high 11 receptions for 118 yards and two touchdowns on Oct. 8 against BYU inside Allegiant Stadium, the home of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Mayer and the Fighting Irish returned to Allegiant about a month after that, recording eight receptions for 98 yards and two touchdowns in a 38-27 loss against USC.
“Coach McDaniels knows how to use tight ends and loves tight ends,” Mayer said Friday to the media. “I think I’m going to fit very well in the offense. It’s coming in, doing what they’re asking me to do and not doing anything more because it’s about winning football games. That’s what they drafted me to do.”
Ziegler, who is drafting players alongside his staff at Las Vegas Raiders Headquarters in Henderson, Nevada, chose to trade at the right time before the string of tight ends started to come off the board and comes after Detroit selected tight end Sam LaPorta from Iowa at No. 34.
Mayer is joining a tight end room that features veteran players, including Austin Hooper and O.J. Howard, both of whom are on one-year contracts.
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Raiders select Byron Young and Tre Tucker in round three
The Las Vegas Raiders had two picks in the third round, with the second from the New York Giants from the Waller trade.
At the beginning of the round, Las Vegas selected defensive tackle Byron Young from Alabama with the 70th overall pick. Young, who is 6-foot-3 and weighs 292 pounds, comes to Sin City after totaling 47 tackles, five tackles for loss, and 3.5 sacks for the Crimson Tide last season.
By selecting Young, the Raiders fulfill a need for a team that ranked 30th in sacks a season ago.
Ziegler said Young has the opportunity to play both on the line and on the edge with his length.
“Big, physical kid, long arms,” Ziegler said. “He does a really nice job of being able to create leverage inside and control running lanes. Has a little bit of early down pass rush, too, right now. I think he can develop more than that, but he has some first-step quickness and because of his length, it makes it hard for some of those guard to handle him inside.”
Thirty picks later at the century mark of the NFL Draft, the Raiders selected wide receiver Tre Tucker from Cincinnati who adds depth to the receiver room behind Davante Adams and Hunter Renfrow and also provides some versatility as a kick returner on special teams.
The 5-foot-9, 182-pound receiver recorded 52 receptions for 672 yards and three touchdowns last year for the Bearcats while returning nine kicks for 192 yards.
The flexibility is going to be huge for Tucker, in addition to his speed, running a 4.4 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine last month.
“Tre has a lot of speed and he has a lot of versatility offensively, both as a receiver that can play the receiver position,” Ziegler said. “There is also because of his speed a gadget element to him that he could be used to get him the ball in space.”
The Las Vegas Raiders start with six picks over the final four rounds during the third and final day of the draft, beginning with the 109th overall pick or the seventh selection in the fourth round. Las Vegas will also have three picks in a span of 17 selections at the back end of the sixth round and into the seventh.
One of the keys to tomorrow for the Las Vegas Raiders will be to see if Ziegler and his team will select a cornerback to help establish the secondary for a team that had a league-worst six interceptions last season.