The Raiders drafting Kyler Murray would be one last middle finger to Oakland

Steal Oakland’s franchise. Then steal its future centerfielder. Tip top.

The Raiders and the city of Oakland have come to a detente. For one final season (or possibly two), the Bay Area will be home to what was once one of the most revered franchises in the NFL.

And with a little luck and one dastardly decision, Raiders owner Mark Davis can shatter that ceasefire and give the city one final, massive middle finger. All he has to do is take Kyler Murray with the fourth pick of the 2019 NFL Draft.

Davis’ second go-round with Oakland, for all intents and purposes, came to a calamitous end when he decided to leave the crumbling hallways of the Oakland Coliseum for a sprawling, taxpayer-funded cathedral in the Las Vegas desert. The Raiders will move to Nevada as soon as their $2 billion venue officially opens, leaving Oakland with neither an NFL franchise nor newfound mounds of municipal stadium debt from 2020 onward.

The city also won’t have a stud centerfield prospect waiting in the Athletics’ farm system. Instead, he could leave with Davis for the drier pastures of the outlying Vegas area.

It was less than a year ago the A’s made Murray — who then had a .296 batting average, 10 home runs, and 10 stolen bases in 51 games for Oklahoma’s baseball team — the ninth overall pick of the MLB Amateur Draft. That selection came with the caveat that the two-sport athlete would be able to give football one last shot as he battled to fill Baker Mayfield’s shoes behind center.

Murray’s lone season as a starter went nearly as well as humanly possible. It culminated with a Big 12 title, a spot in the College Football Playoff, and a Heisman Trophy award as the sport’s top player. It was also enough to convince him to leave the Athletics and their $5 million signing bonus behind— and to put him firmly on Raiders coach Jon Gruden’s radar. A pre-draft workout only added more oxygen to the Murray-to-Oakland embers, even if there’s plenty of work to be done to get there first.

So what happens in Oakland if Murray falls to the Raiders and gets gobbled up by Gruden?

Some impressive cruelty, for one.

Much like Kevin Durant’s brief stay in Seattle before the Sonics became the Thunder, Murray could give Oakland a taste of stardom before being ripped away by relocation. His rookie season would be the last played in the Coliseum by an NFL team, and he’d likely get the opportunity to tease an already-tortured fanbase (see Derek Carr’s broken leg in 2016, or Super Bowl XXXVII, or basically any of the years in between or following those touchstones) with his dual-threat talent.

Murray would have one season in Oakland to prove he’s an NFL quarterback before the team moves to Las Vegas. In the process, he’d likely play in front of the league’s most disinterested non-LA crowd. Maybe fans would turn out to see a premier young quarterback line up behind center. Or maybe the combination of another rebuilding year and a lame duck team set to change states means Oakland won’t be getting the black hole fanaticism that once gave the team one of the league’s fiercest homefield advantages.

Procuring Murray would also mean finding a way to offload incumbent quarterback Carr. The 2014 second-round pick emerged as a bonafide MVP candidate in his third season before he broke his leg in Week 16 and sunk the Raiders’ postseason chances in the process. While he’s 10-21 as a starter in the two years since, he’s still an above-average quarterback who can thrive outside of the swirling thunderstorm of disfunction that follows the Raiders through seasons, decades, and somehow eras of football.

Carr has completed just under 66 percent of his passes and recorded a 41:23 touchdown-to-interception ratio the past two years. His 90.3 passer rating ranks 19th in the league among players who have started at least 16 games since 2017.

He’s not quite a franchise quarterback right now, but he’s better than a caretaker/game manager. The problem is he’s got four years and $86 million of cap hits remaining on his contract — numbers that paint him as a top-10 quarterback when he’s barely sneaking into the top 20. Carr is capable of more, and that’s what Gruden and his general manager Mike Mayock have been betting on while telling all sorts of public sources he’s still their quarterback— but the Cardinals are saying the same thing about Josh Rosen, because that’s pretty much what they’ve got to say.

Gruden proved nothing in 2018 if not that he loves trades, and there would be a handful of suitors happy to add a 28-year-old passer less than three years removed from MVP candidacy — and as a Raider, no less. Any team acquiring Carr would be getting him for less than Nick Foles signed for with the Jaguars this spring (four years, $88 million). Foles’ lack of non-Jacksonville interest as a free agent could soften the market for an Oakland deal, but clubs like the Giants, Dolphins, Washington, and maybe even the Cardinals in this scenario could all be looking for a young veteran to lead their offense moving forward.

Swapping out Carr would also help Oakland slide another piece into their offensive transformation.

Murray would be a perfect complement to the Raiders’ revamped offense

2019 has been all about turning the assets Gruden amassed in 2018’s bottoming-out into game-changing acquisitions. A spree that started with All-Pro wide receiver Antonio Brown has now spread out to free agents Trent Brown, Tyrell Williams, and J.J. Nelson. What was once an understaffed passing attack is now loaded with deep-threat playmakers capable of creating space downfield and turning possessions on their own side of the field into touchdowns.

That’s a perfect setting for Murray to weave his magic. Murray has been nothing if not a dynamic big-play threat in college. He averaged an uber-efficient 11.6 yards per pass last season and an absurd 16.8 yards per completion. His favorite target, wideout Marquise Brown, had at least one reception for 46 yards or more in eight of his 14 games with Murray at Oklahoma last fall.

Carr, comparatively, averaged only 7.9 yards per pass and 11.8 yards per completion in college. Over the past three NFL seasons — including his MVP-caliber 2016 — he’s averaged only 7.05 yards per attempt. That’s good for 31st place among starting quarterbacks and lower than QBs like Ryan Tannehill and Lamar Jackson.

That could be a function of having limited playmakers at wideout, or it could be a function of Carr just not being a consistent threat to find open targets downfield. Meanwhile, adding Brown, Williams, and Nelson to the lineup is a pairing that matches Murray’s big arm with three players who can complement his skillset perfectly.

The Raiders still have a ways to go to finish building out their offense, but there’s time to make those changes at the draft. Oakland needs help at tailback and tight end, two positions with plenty of talent emerging in this year’s rookie class. If Gruden wants to truly rebuild the team in his image, it would mean swapping out a perfectly cromulent quarterback for one who could be an all-time great. With a brand-new receiving corps in tow, he’s set up an environment where Murray could thrive immediately.

And if not, we’ll get to see what Carr can do with the best WR corps he’s ever been paired with.

Murray getting snapped up by Oakland wouldn’t change the rest of the draft much

Before the NFL Combine, Oakland selecting a quarterback with the No. 4 pick without a glaring need at the position could have sent passer-hungry teams scrambling. Teams like the Jaguars, Broncos, and Dolphins would have felt pressure to trade up and get to other quarterback prospects like Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins or Missouri’s Drew Lock before the well of QB talent dried up.

Now, with the Cardinals reportedly closing in on Murray, few teams are expecting a scenario where a quarterback isn’t selected in the top four picks. Murray-to-Arizona is the most widely mocked selection at the No. 1 pick — but if the Cards aren’t sold on the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and Gruden is, the Raiders certainly have the assets to move up from No. 4 to get him before anyone else can.

Oakland has three first-round picks at its disposal this spring and made several high-profile moves in free agency — adding the two famous Browns (Antonio and Trent) and inking LaMarcus Joyner foremost among them — to mitigate the amount of draft help needed. But the club could also stand pat at No. 4 and either hope Murray slips or take a swing at the other top-tier QB in the draft:

“We all know that Jon Gruden is a quarterback guy. Jon’s going to evaluate every quarterback out there every single year. That’s just who he is,” Mayock said at the NFL’s Annual League Meeting in March, via Silver and Black Pride.

“We’re going to see Kyler Murray and we’re going to see Haskins (in private workouts). We believe they’re high-level quarterbacks, and that’s due diligence. You’d better know how good these guys are. You’d better know what other teams are interested in, and whether or not you can improve your own position.”

Otherwise, the team’s late-round firsts could be used on more flawed prospects like Lock or Duke’s Daniel Jones, but neither may present the potential upgrade over Carr to make Gruden pull the trigger and neglect his team’s other draft needs.

The question is whether other teams will be hungry enough to make Arizona budge or come up with the overpayment to beat out a potential Oakland trade with the Oklahoma QB in mind. The Cardinals have certainly made it seem like the top pick in this year’s draft is for sale. That makes Murray a top candidate to go No. 1 overall no matter who is picking there; would a thirsty Raiders team and its ever-tinkering head coach even think twice if he slid all the way to No. 4? Would they ransom him off to extend Oakland’s list of draft assets well into the next decade?

The Raiders drafting Kyler Murray seems like a long shot. First, Murray would have to fall to the team’s pick at No. 4 or Jon Gruden would have to open his war chest to move up in the draft. Then the team would have to decide Derek Carr isn’t redeemable, opting to bolster a position of relative strength rather than the other holes in its roster.

But predicting what Gruden’s going to do is a fool’s errand — after all, he is the same coach who in recent months has brought on the ultimate trifecta of failed backup quarterbacks with Mike Glennon, Nathan Peterman, and Landry Jones. And drafting the Oakland Athletics’ scuttled franchise player one season before leaving Oakland for good would be the supervillain play that keeps owner Mark Davis cackling at night.

If Murray drops to the fourth overall pick, the setting may be too overwhelming for Gruden and Davis to do anything other than select the Heisman winner, then scramble their roster-building plans in the aftermath. It would be a dastardly play for the Raiders.

And, somehow, given all the new playmaking faces in the Oakland receiving corps, maybe the right one.