FanPost

Oakland's race to the bottom

As of today, the Raiders have the 3rd overall pick in the draft behind Kansas City (#1) and Jacksonville (#2). The remaining four games for the Raiders are Denver and Kansas City (both home) and Carolina and San Diego (both away). Why should we care? Because it determines which pick we'll have in the 2nd round for the 2013 NFL Draft.

If they lose out for the remaining games, they would have either the #1 overall (if Jacksonville can win a game) or #2 (if they can't). Jacksonville faces the Jets, Miami, New England and Tennessee so it's possible they can pull off a win against one of those teams. The Raiders have the lowest Opp W-L % of the bottom 10 teams, which determines the tie-breaker if teams finish with the same record.

However this shakes out, the Carson Palmer trade ended up being a very good thing for the Bengals. They received a 2012 1st round pick (#17, CB Dre Kirkpatrick) and a 2013 2nd round pick (#33-#38 most likely) for basically someone they never intended to have play for them again. The team even received two picks for Chad Johnson who fell into the same category. At some point the much maligned front office needs to get some credit for moves like this.

P.S. Note the absence of "we should pick blah blah with that pick" analysis because quite frankly we have no clue yet what we need or who will be available. Let's save the draft discussion for the offseason when we aren't actually still playing football games...

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cincy Jungle's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan, which is as important as the views of Cincy Jungle's writers or editors.