Two of the more surprising things from the Las Vegas Raiders' 2025 NFL draft was the lack of an early quarterback selection and the team passing on Shedeur Sanders several times before he was ultimately drafted in the fifth round by the Cleveland Browns.
The Raiders and Sanders were linked for several months and the idea was that the team could draft him at some point to serve as the heir-apparent to Geno Smith, who is under contract through 2027 but is set to turn 35 and can be cut after 2026.
However, the team did not set up that scenario with Sanders and instead opted to take a few projects in the sixth round in Cam Miller and Tommy Mellott.
So, why did the Raiders not opt to take Sanders or any other quarterback early in the draft? One unnamed NFL executive told The Athletic's Mike Sando that he thinks Pete Carroll's relationship with Smith might have played a role.
“My guess is that Pete doesn’t want to do Geno (Smith) the way Atlanta did (Kirk) Cousins,” the executive said. “Atlanta was able to do that to Cousins because they didn’t have a previous relationship. For Pete, let’s face it: How long is he going to coach that team? Does he really want to start his last chance by alienating the quarterback he just got?”
While we can never rule anything out, we don't buy that take.
Granted, Carroll and Smith are very close from their days together with the Seattle Seahawks, as Smith detailed in his introductory press conference with the Raiders.
But that relationship would not have precluded the Raiders from taking a quarterback they truly believed in, as that would have been organizational malpractice on Las Vegas' part.
The quarterback position is the most important one in the NFL and if there's a guy a team thinks can be "the guy" for the next decade-plus, no relationship is going to prevent the team from drafting that player.
At the end of the day, we simply think the Raiders just didn't value any quarterback who was on the board when they were on the clock over the first five rounds. Like many teams, we suspect the Raiders would rather wait on the 2026 class and see how things play out with Smith in 2025.
