For Raiders, Crabtree or Maclin have to be it

By Anthony Carroll  |   Thursday, April 16, 2009  |  Comments( 20 )

Oakland Raiders
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Not everyone may agree that the Oakland Raiders should draft a wide receiver seventh overall on April 25. Then again, you’d have to be blind to believe that the silver and black are somehow set at wideout.

If the season started today, the Raider receiving corps would consist of Javon Walker, Johnnie Lee Higgins, Chaz Schilens, Todd Watkins, Arman Shields and Johnathan Holland.

Yuck.

Which of those six players would be the No. 1 guy?

Let’s see: Walker had 15 catches all of last season and is coming off ankle surgery. Higgins has just three career NFL starts and recorded a very modest 22 grabs last year. Schilens, a 2008 seventh-rounder, had 15 receptions last season. Watkins has zero career grabs. So does Shields. And so does Holland.

None are worthy of a No. 1 slot on an NFL team, and, at this point, it appears only Higgins could emerge as one midway through the season. Maybe Schilens, but that’s a huge stretch. Frankly, it’s not worth the gamble for Oakland to head into Week 1 with the current lineup it has at WR.

So, if 79-year-old owner Al Davis opts to use his fourth consecutive top 10 draft pick on a receiver, whom should it be? With the seventh overall pick, there seems to be two consensus options: Michael Crabtree or Jeremy Maclin.

(Maryland’s Darrius Heyward-Bey has been thrown out there as another possible option. I’ll discount him as only a credible choice if both Crabtree and Maclin are taken before the Raiders’ pick.)

At this point, Crabtree seems to be the odds-on favorite pick if he can fall to Oakland at seven. However, that would require the Cleveland Browns to pass up the former Texas Tech standout at pick five. ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr., who spends 90 percent of his time awake analyzing the NFL draft and the other 10 percent doing his hair, has the Browns grabbing Crabtree and the Raiders settling with Maclin two picks later. That’s assuming that Crabtree even falls as far as five. The Browns appear to be the most likely team to bite on the 6-foot-3 pass catcher, but the Seattle Seahawks could snatch him up at pick four, or even the Kansas City Chiefs at three.

At this point, we’ll say this: The chances Crabtree drops to seven are slim. If he does, though, Davis would be a fool not to take him. In two seasons with the Red Raiders, the big-play wideout racked up 231 receptions for 3,127 yards and a remarkable 41 touchdowns.

Sure, he may have been a member of a pass-happy offense. But that just means the defense knew he was getting the ball. And they still couldn’t stop him.

If Crabtree is indeed gone, however, Maclin must be Oakland's choice.

At 6-1, 200 pounds, Maclin has decent, not great size; but whatever he lacks in size, he makes up in speed and versatility. As a freshman, the ex-Missouri standout recorded an astonishing 2,776 all-purpose yards: 1,055 receiving, 375 rushing, 1,039 from kickoff returns and 307 from the punt return game. As a follow-up in 2008, Maclin surpassed his ‘07 totals, this time amassing 2,833 all-purpose yards: 1,260 receiving, 293 rushing and 1,280 in returns.

Though he proved to be useful in every aspect of Missouri’s offense and a big-time player on special teams, what’s most promising about Maclin is his improvement in the passing game.

After posting a very impressive freshman campaign, the 20-year-old upped his catches as a sophomore from 80 to 102, his yards from 1,055 to 1,260 and his TDs from nine to 13.

With such uncertainty on the depth chart, Oakland can’t afford to pass on either Crabtree or Maclin. Both will make QB JaMarcus Russell’s life easier. Most importantly, picking either of the two will assure the Raiders aren’t dependent on Javon Walker. After all, we’ve seen how reliable he is.
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About Anthony Carroll

Anthony Carroll began writing for RealFootball365.com on Sept. 26, 2005, making him one of the longest tenured contributors to the “365” team. As a senior writer, Anthony has taken on the task of delivering original content to the silver and black faithful year round, despite having to deal...
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