The Oakland Raiders did a lot more for themselves than just getting a starting quarterback when they traded for Matt Schaub. The team also gave itself the flexibility to draft the best player available with the No. 5 pick in the NFL Draft.
Teams never like to draft for need that early in the first round, and Raiders coach Dennis Allen recently said Schaub takes the pressure of the team to go after a quarterback at that spot.
"“Obviously, that’s still a position that we’ll look at it. But I think what it does is you don’t feel that pressure that you have to go out and try to draft a quarterback. You kind of let everything kind of fall to you now. So, that’s why I thought going out and getting the veteran quarterback, and especially a veteran quarterback of Matt Schaub’s stature, I thought that was the best thing for us as a football team.”"
Allen went on to say that he see’s no reason why Schaub can’t be the starter for two or three years. So the other thing the Raiders did when they trading for Schaub was supposedly get a starting QB for a sixth round pick. There are not many teams out there that wouldn’t make that deal.
This does, of course, relies on Schaub playing a lot better than he did last year.