Here’s What I Would Have Done: Playing Raiders GM for an Offseason
The offseason moves fast. Here’s the plan I had built before it moved on me.
Editor’s note: Malik Willis signed with the Dolphins hours after this was written. The plan stands as originally built. I planned to release this on 3/10, the night before the league year truly begins. Leave it to a rookie journalist to forget about the ‘legal tampering’ period. What the heck is legal tampering? I hope you still enjoy this read as it was one of my more fun pieces to write. - Pick ‘Em Paul.
I am a Packers fan. Born and raised in Green Bay, I bleed green and gold, and I make absolutely no apologies for it.
I also love Las Vegas more than almost any city on earth.
So, when I sat down to think about which NFL franchise has the most interesting offseason setup right now, the answer hit me fast. It wasn’t the Cowboys. It wasn’t the Jets. It was the Las Vegas Raiders, a team that just finished 3-14, holds the most cap space in the NFL, and is sitting on a pile of draft picks that would make most GMs dizzy.
The question that kept pulling at me wasn’t ‘can the Raiders get better?’ It was this: what if someone actually thought big enough to use all of it the right way?
So, I’m going to play GM for an offseason. This is the part most sports fans daydream about on a Wednesday afternoon. I’m just doing it out loud.
Here’s my warning upfront: the plan I’m going to walk you through goes directly against the conventional wisdom. Every major outlet right now is writing pieces about how the Raiders should use the number one pick to draft Fernando Mendoza and build around him. I’m going to argue they shouldn’t. Not because Mendoza isn’t good, but because the math of this offseason points somewhere else entirely.
Let’s start with the odds, because this is JPM Picks and the odds are always where we start.
The Number That Got My Attention
The 1999 St. Louis Rams entered that season at 150-1 to win the Super Bowl. Kurt Warner came off the practice squad. They won it all. It’s the longest preseason Super Bowl odds in NFL history by a wide margin.
The 2001 New England Patriots? 60-1. You know how that one ended.
As of this writing, my local sportsbook has the Las Vegas Raiders at 125-1 to win Super Bowl LXI.
That’s not 60-1. That’s not even close to that. But it would slide right into second place all-time if this team somehow figured it out, which is either the most absurd sentence I’ve typed this week or the most interesting one.
I’m not telling you to bet the Raiders at 125-1. I’m telling you that number is the reason I started thinking through this scenario in the first place. The upside of being wildly wrong about a 125-1 shot is that you’re wrong about a 125-1 shot. The upside of being right, even partially right, is a story nobody forgets.
Now let’s talk about what they actually have to work with.
What Already Happened (And It’s a Lot)
The Raiders went 3-14 last season. Gardner Minshew and then Geno Smith ran the offense behind what became a league-high 64 sacks allowed. It was rough. The kind of rough that earns you the number one pick in the draft.
Then this past Friday, something interesting happened. The Raiders traded Maxx Crosby, their best defensive player, to the Baltimore Ravens. In return, they received Baltimore’s first-round picks in both 2026 and 2027.
So now, before free agency even opens, the Raiders hold: the first overall pick, the fourteenth pick (Baltimore’s 2026 first, which turned out to be a top-15 pick, meaning the Ravens paid a steep price to land Crosby), and a Ravens first-rounder in 2027.
On top of that, they are sitting on the most cap space in the NFL. Estimates before the Crosby trade had them around $87 to $88 million. After clearing his contract, that number climbed past $119 million depending on which source you’re reading.
This is not a rebuilding team anymore. This is a team with the resources to do something real, if they decide to actually do it.
The Move Nobody Is Talking About: Trading the First Pick
Here’s where I’m going to lose some people, and that’s fine.
The entire football world right now has penciled in Fernando Mendoza to the Raiders at number one. Mendoza won the Heisman, led Indiana to a national title, and is the consensus top quarterback in this class. He is a legitimate franchise quarterback prospect. Nobody serious is disputing that.
But here’s the thing: the 2027 quarterback class might be one of the greatest in NFL draft history. Todd McShay called it potentially one of the greatest quarterback classes ever. Arch Manning is coming back for another year at Texas. Dante Moore returned to Oregon. Julian Sayin is at Ohio State. DJ Lagway is at Baylor. You’re looking at a group that, if even two or three of those names deliver, makes the 2026 class look thin in comparison.
The Raiders have the Ravens’ 2027 first-round pick already. If they play this right, they could add another one. And if they’re the worst team in the league again in 2026, they’re looking at their own number one in 2027 as well.
That’s potentially three first-round picks going into one of the best quarterback drafts in recent memory. Why blow that by reaching for the right answer now when the better answer might be twelve months away?
So, my first call as GM is to Miami.
The Mock Trade: Raiders Trade #1 to the Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins hold the eleventh pick. Their new GM Jon-Eric Sullivan has already signaled he wants to build through the draft, and their new head coach Jeff Hafley (the former Defensive Coordinator with my Green Bay Packers) is trying to establish something from the ground up. Moving on from Tua Tagovailoa and landing a genuine franchise quarterback in Fernando Mendoza would be exactly the kind of statement a new regime makes to announce itself.
And here’s the storyline that writes itself: Mendoza played high school football in Miami. He is, in a very real sense, coming home. The local angle practically sells itself.
This is not a far-fetched trade. Teams have given up enormous packages to move into the top spot for a franchise quarterback. I think a fair ask for flipping the first pick to Miami looks something like this:
Raiders receive: #11 overall + Miami’s 2027 first-round pick + Miami’s 2026 second-round pick
For context, the 49ers gave up three first-round picks spread over multiple years to move from twelfth to third in 2021. Miami would be moving all the way from eleventh to first for a quarterback their fanbase is already excited about. Asking for two firsts (one of which is next year) and a second feels like a real negotiation, not a fantasy.
What the Raiders are left with after this trade:
• #11 pick (from Miami)
• Ravens 2026 first (#14 overall – Maxx Crosby Trade)
• Miami 2026 second
• Ravens 2027 first
• Miami 2027 first
• $119 million in cap space and counting
That is not a rebuilding situation. That is a team that could be genuinely competitive inside two years, with a real quarterback at the center of it, if they spend this offseason correctly.
The Bridge: Malik Willis
Now you need a quarterback for 2026, because you can’t run out there with nobody under center.
Here’s where being a Packer fan gives me a little inside perspective I’m happy to use.
Malik Willis spent two seasons in Green Bay being coached by Matt LaFleur and the Packers’ offensive staff. He went from a 53 percent completion rate and a 49.4 passer rating with the Titans to a 78.7 percent completion rate and a 134.6 passer rating in Green Bay. He completed 70 of 89 passes for 972 yards, six touchdowns, and zero interceptions in limited appearances. He also ran for 261 yards and three scores.
Willis is 26 years old. He is the top free agent on NFL.com’s list of the 101 best available players this offseason. And his agent is David Mulugheta, who negotiated Deshaun Watson’s fully guaranteed contract, which means Willis is going to get paid. Reports have his number somewhere between $25 and $35 million per year.
For the Raiders, with $119 million to work with, that number is manageable. And the fit makes sense: new Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak runs a zone-blocking, play-action system that is custom-built for a mobile quarterback who can extend plays. Willis thrives in exactly that kind of structure.
The expectation here is not that Willis becomes the long-term answer. The expectation is that he is functional enough in 2026 to keep the team competitive while you build around him, and that you go find the real answer in 2027 with the picks you’ve accumulated.
If Willis surprises everyone and plays like he did in Green Bay for a full season? Great. You deal with that problem when you have it.
The Trenches: Where the Real Money Goes
The Raiders were sacked 64 times last season. That led the NFL. Their quarterback pressure percentage on defense ranked 27th in the league, which became a lot more relevant the moment Maxx Crosby got on a plane to Baltimore.
This is where the cap space has to do its heaviest lifting.
Offensive Line: Tyler Linderbaum
If I’m the Raiders and I can sign one free agent this offseason, it’s Tyler Linderbaum, and it’s not close.
Linderbaum just turned 26. He has been to three consecutive Pro Bowls. He missed two games total in four NFL seasons. His pass block win rate in 2025 was 0.9 percent, which means he almost never gave up a pressure, and he did it protecting a two-time MVP in Lamar Jackson. He also plays in a zone-blocking scheme for Baltimore, which is the exact same scheme Klint Kubiak runs in Las Vegas.
The Raiders’ center situation was, to be charitable, one of the worst in the league last year. Signing Linderbaum doesn’t just upgrade a position. It transforms the foundation of the offense.
Pass Rush: Replacing Crosby
The Raiders ranked 27th in quarterback pressure percentage last season. That was with Crosby. Without him, this needs to be an aggressive area in both free agency and the draft.
Odafe Oweh had a strong finish to the 2025 season for the Chargers and figures to command real interest at 27 years old with positional versatility. He’s the kind of player you build a rebuilt defensive line around. With the Crosby trade money now off the books, Las Vegas has the room to be aggressive here.
The Draft Picks at 11 and 14
With the quarterback question deferred to 2027, picks eleven and fourteen become entirely about building the roster around Malik Willis in 2026 and whoever the franchise quarterback is after that.
At eleven, the Raiders should take the best offensive tackle available. Not a reach. Not a positional need pick at a stretch. The best tackle on the board. The offensive line was the single biggest structural problem on this team last year, and you fix structural problems at the top of the draft.
At fourteen, the conversation turns to the defensive front. After trading Crosby, the Raiders need multiple contributors along that line, not just one. A versatile defensive lineman or interior rusher who fits the new 3-4 base scheme gives the defense a piece to build around at a position that now has a real hole in it.
The Asset Map After All of This
Let me put the full picture in one place, because it is genuinely striking when you see it together.
• Malik Willis running the offense on a 2-year bridge deal
• Tyler Linderbaum anchoring the center of the offensive line
• Odafe Oweh or a comparable pass rusher replacing Crosby’s production
• Two premium picks in 2026 (11 and 14) targeting OT and defensive line
• Ravens 2027 first, Miami 2027 first, and the Raiders’ own first in 2027
• A $119 million cap space cushion to fill the rest of the roster
And then you walk into the 2027 draft with potentially three first-round picks in what Todd McShay is already calling one of the best quarterback classes in NFL draft history. Arch Manning. Dante Moore. Julian Sayin. You get to shop.
The Honest Risk Assessment
I am not pretending this plan is without risk. That would be sloppy and this is JPM Picks, where we acknowledge the other side of the trade.
Willis might not be good enough to keep games competitive in 2026, which could mean another 3-14 season and a high pick that you can use on a quarterback a year earlier than planned. That’s actually not the worst outcome in this scenario, since you’d be adding yet another first-round pick to a pile that already includes two future firsts.
The 2027 quarterback class is loaded on paper right now. Paper is not a football field. Any of those names could have a bad year, stay another year, or simply not translate to the NFL the way scouts expect. This is always the risk with any draft-based plan.
And there’s the Crosby piece. Trading your best defensive player and then losing in free agency on the edge rusher side would leave this defense without an identity. That’s the version of this that falls apart fastest.
But here’s the counter: a plan with real risk is still better than no plan at all, and ‘take Mendoza at one and hope for the best’ is not a plan. It’s an outcome. The difference between a good GM and a great one is whether you’re building toward something or just reacting to what’s in front of you.
The JPM Take
The Raiders are 125-1 to win the Super Bowl right now. That beats the 2001 Patriots at 60-1 as an historical comparison and sits second only to the 1999 Rams at 150-1, the longest preseason odds in NFL history.
I’m not telling you this team goes from 3-14 to Super Bowl champion in one year. That would be a wild take even for someone who writes a newsletter called Just Paper Money.
What I’m telling you is that this franchise has a genuine shot to compress what normally takes four or five years into two, if and only if they resist the pressure to take the obvious answer right now and instead use this unusual pile of resources to build something that lasts.
The obvious answer is drafting Mendoza at number one.
The interesting answer is trading that pick to Miami, letting a hometown hero come home, collecting more ammunition than you can count, signing a bridge quarterback with something to prove, and walking into 2027 with the freedom to draft whoever you want.
Both answers have merit. One of them has better odds.
I’ll take the one with better odds.
Quick note: I’m a Packers fan writing about the Raiders while sitting in my home office nowhere near Las Vegas. I have no inside information and no actual authority over any NFL franchise. If John Spytek wants to call me, though, I’m available.
This is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money. For entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. Always bet responsibly and never risk money you can’t afford to lose.
