The Raiders have cut ties with yet another former high draft pick from Mike Mayock’s term as general manager – today they released safety Johnathan Abraham, whom they drafted in the first round in 2019. Abraham lost his starting job earlier this year.
Mayock drafted six players in the first round during his three years as GM; of those six, only two – RB Josh Jacobs and DE Clelin Ferrell – are still with the team.
Not to excuse Mayock’s decisions, but perennial asshole Jon Gruden deserves as much, if not more, blame for those drafts.
I feel like if, as a GM, you’re allowing the head coach to determine the picks, then you’re still mostly to blame.
In this case, Gruden probably does deserve most of the blame. Gruden more or less got Reggie Mackenzie fired and then had Davis hire Mayock as GM.
It was pretty clear Gruden wanted to call the personnel shots in addition to being coach and had somebody hired who would let him do so. Any GM candidate who would balk at that would not have even remotely been considered.
That’s pretty much the same problem Gruden had in Tampa. He won a Super Bowl with other people’s players. Then proceeded to have increasingly bad seasons in Tampa with players he did pick, as he asserted control over what should have been front office decisions. Too enamored with overpriced or over the hill free agents and never did know how to properly evaluate or value college players ahead of the draft.