You'll Draft No One and LIKE IT

The Raiders picked the worst possible year to be normal.

For decades, the Raiders have been the NFL’s unrepentant hyper-anarchists. They were self-destructive, counterproductive, problematic, dreadful and endearing. They did everything wrong and nothing worked, but their punk-metal defiance of common sense was charming, even when it was unintentional.

If ever there was a year to hop on a Harley and do donuts in the front yard of conventional wisdom, it was 2026: the Year of the Cursed Draft. This was the year to lure Mike Tomlin to Vegas, hire Gronk as offensive coordinator, bring back Derek Carr and trade the top pick in the draft for first- and second-rounders in 2028. It was the year to name Tom Brady GM/coach/quarterback and dare someone to tell him it wasn’t permitted. It was the year to choose bad taste over no taste.

The Raiders could not really do any of those things, because they finally bottomed out in 2025 after a decade doing precisely those things. They attempted a little daring Moneyball by trading Maxx Crosby in early March, but the Ravens found a Trey Hendrickson-shaped smudge on Crosby’s MRI. So the Raiders continued fitting themselves with grey flannel handcuffs instead.

Klint Kubiak and Fernando Mendoza. They go together like Bowl and Basket. They’re the baked chicken and string beans almondine at a cousin’s wedding reception. Brady and Mark Davis didn’t choose their coach and quarterback. They just clicked the default Recommended for You options. Would you like a coordinator from the Super Bowl winner? Would you like the only quarterback prospect who doesn’t make you want to walk straight into the ocean?

Kubiak and Mendoza are fine, really. Kubiak appears to be a capable programmer of system quarterbacks. Mendoza, with all of his RPOs and quick outs, appears to be highly programmable. After a year of Pete Carroll/Chip Kelly/Geno Smith squabbling while Brady flitted among his retirement hobbies, after a decade of clinging to Carroll/Josh McDaniels/Jon Gruden sugardaddies who liked to neg their veteran quarterbacks, a year of follow-the-Ikea-instructions rebuilding in Vegas will feel therapeutic. The Raiders owe it to themselves and their fans to stop leaping off the roof of the garden shed into the shallow end of the backyard pool. They are going to see what life in the middle of the herd is like.

It’s just that Kubiak’s last name is the NFL’s first name in flavorlessness. And “Mendoza” is literally a sports metaphor for replacement value. The Raiders are no longer tempting fate. By branding themselves as generic, they are tempting dramatic irony.

Look, this may turn out to be the Raiders’ best offseason in decades. They spent lavishly but shrewdly in free agency, adding several Pro Bowl-caliber starters in their early primes. They avoided collateral damage when the Ravens declared takesy-backsies on Crosby. Brady has mostly stayed behind the curtain. Kubiak is not some cantankerous, egomaniacal dustfarting retread, larding the staff and roster with cronies/relatives in the name of “culture.” Kubiak, Mendoza, Tyler Linderbaum, Brock Bowers, Ashton Jeanty and some not-yet-drafted wide receiver could someday form the nucleus of a contender.

This was simply the worst year to pick off the rack. I can’t help but imagine Al Davis looking at the 2026 coaching carousel and draft board, flipping the rest of the NFL the bird, trading the top pick for A.J. Brown or Dexter Lawrence, suing the Ravens to force them to keep Crosby and telling Brady to either grab a helmet or call Aaron Rodgers. It would have been disastrous, but magical in a cult-classic sort of way.

The newly-normal Raiders run the risk of being KISS without their makeup, or Belle’s Beast after the curse lifts and he turns back into Prince Valium. Maybe it will all be worth it when the Raiders are a Wild Card team contemplating whether to give Mendoza $300 million for being the NFL’s ninth-best quarterback. But some fans may end up missing the mad, bad, dangerous-to-themselves Raiders. They were messy. They were bonkers. But they could also be a lot of fun.

Jets Select David Bailey (Edge, Texas Tech), Kenyan Sadiq (TE, Oregon), Omar Cooper (WR, Indiana)

Entering the 2026 draft with two high first-round picks was like heading to the Saturday morning flea market in the racetrack parking lot with $5000 to spend. All they sell at the flea market is waterbongs, fake samurai swords and soft pretzels. How many of each of those things does any one household need? (The answers: three, two and a dozen.) Walk in with too much money, and you’ll end up over-investing in very silly things.

Such was the fate of the Jets, who traded talented defenders Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner for the capital they needed to shop in a draft class with little else to offer except talented defenders, none of whom are as good as Sauce or Williams. To torture this metaphor, that’s like selling the Green Destiny and a bong signed by Cheech Marin for the flea market money.

Bailey was a better choice than Arvell Reese for the franchise most likely to stab itself in the back with safety scissors. The Jets need the football equivalent of those Jitterbug phones for the elderly: the fewer features, the better. Reese’s “edge” and “linebacker” options would have confused them.

The Jets caught a bit of a break when Sadiq fell to them with the 16th pick, then traded some of that excess draft capital to the 49ers to move up for Cooper. Geno Smith, Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson, Cooper and Sadiq may not be a playoff-caliber offense by any stretch, but the Jets won’t be at risk of being shut out each week. Cooper and Sadiq, with their YAC potentials, are the soft pretzels in this metaphor. With mustard.

The Jets are going to get lots of A+ grades for this draft. Even I will be nice to them. Just remember that no franchise does less with A+ drafts than the Jets have done, year after year after year.

Cardinals Select Jeremiyah Love, RB, Notre Dame

Followed by …

Titans Select Carnell Tate (WR, Ohio State), Keldric Faulk (Edge, Auburn)

The first round of the 2026 draft threatened to hit an early pothole when the league’s most anonymous tiny-market franchises picked back-to-back. But both teams chose high-profile offensive playmakers, improving the watchability of the draft a lot and their rosters a little.

The Cardinals are deluding themselves if they think they are ready for a running back. NFL Network analysts said all the usual things about how Love is “not just a running back” and the Cardinals will be “fun to watch.” These are all-too-familiar rationalizations. With Love, the Cardinals will go from being “fun to watch” when coming back from a 45-10 deficit to being “fun to watch” when coming back from a 42-17 deficit. Love, like Trey McBride, will exist to rack up fantasy stats starting at about 6:15 Eastern time.

The Titans made news earlier in the month by finally upgrading their uniforms after wearing a head-to-toe Nike Air Monarch for the last 30 years. The new look will prevent their All Bald Guy coaching staff from giving off too much of a THX1138 vibe.

The Titans reached badly for Tate, a possession WR2-type for a team whose alleged WR1 is Calvin Ridley, the biggest fantasy mirage east of Trey McBride.

The Titans traded up as part of the Great Bills Slip ‘n’ Slide to select Faulk, whose traits are impressive but production was nearly nonexistent. They didn’t trade up very far, nor did they give up very much. Faulk and a top defender like Arvell Reese or Caleb Downs, plus some Day Two offensive role players, might have positioned the Titans to win some games with defense.

Cardinals GM Monti Ossenfort admitted that it took longer than expected to make the selection because he did not have Love’s correct phone number. I can picture Jordan Love yelling “QUIT BOTHERING ME” the third time Ossenfort called him, then putting his phone on “silent.” Yep, the Cardinals are clearly the organization that’s one step ahead of the curve and ready to prove conventional wisdom and the analytics community wrong, just as soon as they figure out what “notifications” mean.

Giants Select Arvell Reese (Edge/LB, Ohio State), Francis Mauigoa (Offensive Line, Miami)

Dexter Lawrence was giving off some powerful comfy-with-failure energy before the Giants traded him for the 10th pick. It’s as if Lawrence read John Harbaugh’s Calculus I course syllabus and demanded an immediate transfer into Math for Poets. Fans and early adopters see the Harbaugh Giants as quick-turnaround playoff sleepers. Harbaugh may see a bunch of veterans who had too much fun goofing off for a decade’s worth of substitute teachers.

The Giants got a steal when Reese fell to them. They are loaded with edge rushers, but Reese could start his career at linebacker, and/or Brian Burns could take the Dexter Express out of town. (Kayvon Thibodeaux may get traded for World Cup tickets, or at least a parking pass.)

Mauigoa also looks like a fine pick: the best available prospect at a need position, assuming his back isn’t about to snap like the timing belt on a 1994 Corolla.