Jon Gruden Sees “A Lot Of Potential” To Make Draft Trades This Year

Raiders HC Jon Gruden mentioned on “The Game Plan” podcast that he sees “a lot of potential” for them to make trades in this year’s draft. 

“I think so,” Gruden said. “I think there’s a lot of potential for trades, and I think that’s one of the things I’m excited about [with] Mike Mayock. What he brings to the table, he’s got great resources around the NFL. He’s been in every building. He’s on a first-name basis, everybody knows Mike, and I think he’s going to be on the phones quite a bit with the two picks you talked about. Who knows? We may move up with the No. 4 pick. We may move back with that pick. We’ll see how it all unfolds.”

Oakland has three first-round picks to work with this year after trading away Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper last year. 

Gruden also said they’ve been doing a lot of work on free agency the past few weeks and are looking to add some younger players this year. 

“That’s what we’ve been doing the last 10 days,” Gruden said. “We’ve been doing nothing but studying free agents. Guys [whose] contracts are up. Obviously, we aren’t looking to add players that are at the end of their career. We’re looking for blossoming young players, [and] those guys usually don’t get to free agency. The pickings are slim for everybody, but there are a couple diamonds in the rough. We’ll see where the market goes, but you don’t want to spend all your money that you have on a few free agents. You want to try and keep some of that money available in case a trade might develop during the draft.”

According to OverTheCap.com, the Raiders are projected to have around $71 million of cap space to work with this offseason.