LAS VEGAS — Win or lose, the Las Vegas Raiders will have the first pick in this year’s NFL Draft.<\/p>\n
With the New York Giants defeating the Dallas Cowboys 34-17 on Sunday, it means the Raiders will finish the season with the league’s worst record, regardless of Sunday’s outcome against the Kansas City Chiefs.<\/p>\n
Las Vegas was 2-14 entering its home game against the Chiefs.<\/p>\n
Had the Giants (4-13) lost to Dallas, the Raiders would have needed to lose to the Chiefs. Instead, New York’s victory means Las Vegas’ outcome is irrelevant.<\/p>\n
It marks just the second time in franchise history the Raiders will have the top pick. The then-Oakland Raiders took quarterback JaMarcus Russell out of LSU with the No. 1 choice in the 2007 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n
With question marks swirling around starting quarterback Geno Smith, coach Pete Carroll and defensive end Maxx Crosby – mainly whether any or all of them will be with the team next season – the Raiders could usher in a new era by drafting another quarterback, specifically Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza of Indiana or Oregon’s Dante Moore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS — Win or lose, the Las Vegas Raiders will have the first pick in this year’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2065],"tags":[7,1507,1744,393,2455,2454,88,6,3976,525,23839],"class_list":{"0":"post-654304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-las-vegas-raiders","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-geno-smith","10":"tag-las-vegas","11":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","12":"tag-lasvegas","13":"tag-lasvegasraiders","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-pete-carroll","17":"tag-raiders","18":"tag-tst-las-vegas"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115839161465783341","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}