The Las Vegas Raiders are, per usual, in the market for a quarterback and the hope amongst fans is that they land one of the top signal-callers in the 2025 NFL Draft.
The problem with that hope is that the Raiders own the No. 6 overall pick thanks to a pair of meaningless wins at the end of the 2024 campaign. That spot is behind three different teams that need also need a quarterback.
The Tennessee Titans, who sit at No. 1 overall, struck out on Will Levis, the New York Giants mercifully ended the Daniel Jones experiment, and Deshaun Watson’s tenure with the Cleveland Browns has been a total disaster.
According to a recent report from NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, he believes both the Giants and Browns are “probably” going to take a quarterback in the top five. And, seeing as how there’s only two signal-callers who could go in the top five (Cam Ward, Shedeur Sanders), that would leave the Raiders out in the cold.
“You know the Browns are probably going to take one, and the Giants are probably going to take one,” he said. “You have Cam Ward, you have Shedeur Sanders. So much intrigue as far as how it actually shapes out.
“Joe Schoen, the general manager of the Giants, has gone out of his way to talk publicly about how much he likes Shedeur Sanders. I know he was in Miami (to scout Ward) a ton, doing a lot of investigating and doing a lot of research and scouting and all of that.”
The other wild card in this is, of course, the Titans. Again, they need a quarterback, but president of football operations, Chad Brinker, recently stated that the team would not “pass up on a generational talent,” which led many to believe he was talking about either Penn State’s Abdul Carter or Colorado’s Travis Hunter.
While much of the attention has been on Ward and Sanders as the top quarterbacks, Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart has been gaining momentum in recent weeks and could enter the mix in the top half of the first round.
“I was in Mobile watching the practice and Jaxson Dart, the Ole Miss quarterback, seems to have had a really good couple of days,” Rapoport said. “To me, based on the people I’ve spoken with, seems right now to have maybe the inside track, I would say, to be the third quarterback taken.”
“If you talk to the scouts, talk to general managers, where does he fit in? They say, you know, probably somewhere in the middle of the first round,” he added on Dart. “Okay, but we’ve seen this before. If you’re middle of the first round now, by the time we get to the draft, when it’s the quarterback-needy teams, you’re probably a little higher. We’ve seen all these guys get pushed up. This time last year, Bo Nix was being talked about as a second-rounder, and he went 12th.”
As Rapoport notes, Dart could see a similar rise that Nix saw in 2024. He was widely projected to go in the second round yet ultimately landed with the Denver Broncos at No. 12 overall, one spot ahead of the Raiders. Thus far, the Broncos have been rewarded for their selection, as Nix looks like a long-term solution.
If he can continue to raise his stock, perhaps Dart becomes a viable option in Las Vegas. It’s certainly possible he rises to become a top-10 pick, but if the Raiders feel it’s too early to take him at No. 6, they could trade back and acquire more capital while also being able to secure their franchise quarterback.
Putting that idea aside for now, it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that the Raiders will be able to get Sanders or Ward at No. 6 and will have to turn to another option in the first round.
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