NFL Draft 2019: 5 worst picks of the first round
2. Clelin Ferrell to the Raiders at No. 4
Ferrell isn’t a bad football player. He’s going to arrive in Oakland and immediately become Jon Gruden’s best pass rusher. His lack of upside makes him a really bad choice to make so high in the first round.
Again, this doesn’t mean Ferrell is going to be a bad NFL player. It’s very likely that he’ll be a solid starter for the Raiders during his rookie season. It’s not impossible to project him as an above average player in the league for the next decade.
Ferrell just doesn’t have the elite athletic traits you want to see in a potential difference maker off the edge. That, more than anything else, is what the Raiders needed to come away with from this draft. Taking Ferrell when guys like Josh Allen and Ed Oliver were still on the board is a huge mistake by the brain trust of Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock.
If the Raiders were always set on taking Ferrell, they should have engineered a move down in Round 1 to accumulate more draft capital. Most people thought the former Clemson star was going to comfortably fall out of the Top 10. The Raiders made a huge miscalculation by taking him all the way up at No. 4.