Mike Mayock wasn’t thrilled with Hunter Renfrow’s performance at the 2019 NFL Scouting Combine. The Clemson receiver’s 40-yard dash was a little too fast.
The Raiders general manager wanted the slick, agile and always clutch slot receiver in Silver and Black and a solid showing may have pushed him above the range where the Raiders hoped to take him.
“I was almost disappointed that he ran in the 4.5s at the combine,” Mayock said last year. “I didn’t want any more people noticing him.”
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SIGN UP HERE Renfrow’s game tape is top-notch but his measurables are ordinary at best. The guy just gets open and rarely disappoints, making him the quarterback’s best friend. Mayock wanted a guy like that working with Derek Carr.
The Raiders made three fourth-round picks not named Renfrow, but didn’t want to wait until their turn in the fifth. They trade up a smidge to make sure they got him, completing a run of excellent Day 3 picks that turned a solid NFL draft class into an excellent one.
Primary focus honed on the team’s three first-round picks, earned with a 4-12 record and the Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper trades.
Clelin Ferrell, Josh Jacobs and Johnathan Abram got to hold up jerseys at a fancy press conference, but those assets acquired on that Saturday, when most fans follow a reading of names they’ve never heard of, is when Mayock and Gruden did their best work.
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They landed edge rusher Maxx Crosby, cornerback Isaiah Johnson, tight end Foster Moreau, Renfrow and edge rusher Quinton Bell.
Bell didn’t work out. That happens with seventh-round fliers. Johnson was hurt most of last season but the team still believes he can become a significant defensive contributor.
Mayock hit the other three selections out of the freaking park. Crosby had 10 sacks and was runner up for defensive rookie of the year. Moreau was a quality run blocker and red zone receiving target who finished with five touchdowns and often came up big in the clutch. Renfrow came on strong late and finished as the team’s best receiver.
The Raiders used their fourth-round pick to take Crosby and traded down a few times to land Johnson and Moreau.
That’s a lot of quality acquired on the draft’s final day. Mayock didn’t pat himself on the back when asked to look back on that experience. He actually focused on a valuable lesson learned about what he called “the power of patience.”
Mayock suggested a few times that the Raiders trade up in the NFL draft’s first and second days to get guys they wanted. Those moves normally cost multiple picks, especially Day 3 kickers the Raiders are glad they kept and were able to use effectively.
Instead, the Raiders traded down twice and still got Clemson cornerback Trayvon Mullen, providing the Day 3 cache to get a good job done.
“We had talked about moving up a couple different times throughout the first two or three rounds,” Mayock said Tuesday in a conference call with local reporters. “We talked it through, we decided not to do it and we got in the second round and we traded back twice and still got the one player we wanted. It gave us some extra picks on the third day. We traded back two times again in the fourth round and then traded up in the fifth round to come get Hunter Renfrow.
“I think the one thing I learned is that even though I wanted to be impulsive, I had to think that it helped that Jon and I talked everything through and kind of decided to be patient and ultimately we let the draft come to us a little bit and through that process we generated two or three extra picks that turned into pretty good football players.”
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Working the draft as they did, being patient and prudent while still getting guys they wanted ultimately secured a foundational draft class that played a significant role in last year’s 7-9 and provides hope for the future.
“Obviously, you want to be aggressive and you want to go after the players you want,” Mayock said. “But in hindsight on the third day, you get Maxx Crosby at No. 106. We think Isaiah Johnson, who’s a fourth-round pick, has a chance to be very good. Foster Moreau had a heck of a season as a rookie until he got hurt and Hunter Renfrow, as a fifth-round pick, had a big year in the slot. So, I think a lot of people get fired up and the mock drafts are all about the first round and people scream and yell about who the quarterbacks are, but at the end of the day, to me, the third day is just as important as the first. So is the acquisition of the college free agents.”