A Schaub in hand is worth a Manziel and a Bortles in the bush.
Dallas Cowboys to trade up for Johnny Manziel?
The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the Oakland Raiders won't consider taking either Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel or Central Florida quarterback Blake Bortles with the No. 5 pick in the NFL Draft, which begins Thursday.
The Raiders traded for Houston Texans quarterback Matt Schaub in the offseason, and as CBSSports.com reports, coach Dennis Allen named him the starting quarterback almost immediately.
Schaub's presence allows general manager Reggie McKenzie some leeway in finding the best player available with the No. 5 pick, which is his standard operating procedure.
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"Reggie McKenzie has said he strictly goes by the best player available on the Raiders' draft board," the Chronicle's Vic Tafur wrote. "There are at least five walk-in-the-building impact players available ([Jadeveon] Clowney, [Sammy] Watkins, [Khalil] Mack, [Greg] Robinson and [Jake] Matthews) and the Raiders can get one of those if they don't trade down."
Publicly, of course, McKenzie won't tip his hand.
"What it does is just give us some stability at that position, and we needed that," McKenzie told the Chronicle. "Because we traded for Schaub does that mean we're going to bypass a (quarterback) that we've got graded a certain way? No."
CBSSports added that a previous Fresno Bee report indicated that the Raiders had a massive crush on Fresno State quarterback Derek Carr, who still should be available after the first round. He also is a quarterback with a more similar style to that of Schaub than certainly Manziel would have.
And as Tafur added, Manziel has to prove that he can handle passing players with more than just a primary target listed.
"Manziel is a one-read quarterback who made a lot of plays outside the pocket in college," Tafur wrote. "As NFL Films producer Greg Cosell pointed out, he doesn't anticipate receivers getting open but sees them and then throws it. He missed a lot of open receivers at Texas A&M and he left the pocket when he didn't really have to."
Tafur then mentioned the Raiders having the same issue with now-departed QB Terrelle Pryor.
Whom do you think the Raiders should take with the No. 5 pick in the NFL draft, or should they trade up or down? Comment below or tell us @SportsWN.
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