Mike Mayock’s second draft with Raiders will look like his first

The competitor in Raiders general manager Mike Mayock was sometimes tough to corral during the 2019 draft. It was his first time overseeing that process since coming on as general manager 11 months before.

But he succeeded, remaining disciplined, moving down to pick up prospects while ignoring the impulse to give away assets to move up. The result was a draft that yielded five impact starters over the first five rounds.

So if you are looking for clues as to how Mayock will conduct his second draft with the Raiders, his first one reveals many.

“I’ll tell you what kind of stands out is just learning a lesson, and it’s not an easy one, especially in your first draft,” said Mayock, who worked as a draft analyst for the NFL Network before coming to the Raiders. “And that is just having to be patient.”

Doing so allowed Mayock and the Raiders to get creative on day two of the draft. They moved back twice in the second round to add extra fourth- and fifth-round selections and still were able to secure one of their intended targets in Clemson cornerback Trayvon Mullen (40th pick overall, second round).

On day three, the Raiders traded back twice in the fourth round, but still came away with dynamic defensive end Maxx Crosby from Eastern Michigan at No. 106, promising cornerback Isaiah Johnson from Houston at No. 129, tight end Foster Moreau from LSU at No. 137. They also added wide receiver Hunter Renfrow of Clemson at No. 149 in the fifth round.

That is on top of the three first-round picks that secured Clemson defensive end Clelin Ferrell, who the Raiders envision setting the edge of their defensive line for years to come, running back Josh Jacobs, who set a club rookie rushing record with 1,150 yards, and strong safety Johnathan Abram, who missed all but one game with a shoulder injury.

Mayock said it helped that he and coach Jon Gruden developed a plan for the draft and stuck to it.

“So 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,” Mayock said.

Not that it was easy. ”Obviously, you want to be aggressive. You want to go after the players you want. But in hindsight, on the third day you get Maxx Crosby at 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 this year, don’t expect Mayock, a noted film grinder, to get so caught up in the bluster and hype of the early stages of the draft that it costs the Raiders in the later rounds. “To me, the third day is just as important as the first,” Mayock said.

As part of their plan, Mayock and Gruden have talked extensively about building the right culture by bringing in high-character players. That is more important than ever, given the gamble the Raiders took on Antonio Brown last year that blew up in their face.

“You have to be consistent. You have to have a commitment to it, regardless,” Mayock said. “And I think that’s something Jon and I spent a lot of time talking about. What kind of people do we want to bring into this building? And the fact that these kids came in, and I’ll use the word ‘competed’ the way we wanted them to compete. I think that helps change the culture and helps set that foundation that we kept talking about a year ago.”

Making that sort of determination might not be as easy this year with the COVID-19 pandemic putting major restrictions on teams’ ability to personally visit with prospects. It makes the work Mayock put in prior to the lockdown — he was a prominent figure at the Senior Bowl in Mobile in January and was part of the Raiders’ contingent at the NFL scouting combine — all the more critical.

Nevertheless, the information void created by the COVD-19 restrictions has created new challenges.

“I think the bigger change comes on the third day and thereafter. The first-day prospects, for the most part, you’ve got two to three years of film. Most of them at least were at the combine and you have at least the height and weight, if not verified 40 times, etcetera,” Mayock said.

By the third day, Mayock said “you start talking about guys that don’t have as much tape, guys that don’t have verifies, guys that were not at the combine. We are getting an awful lot of tape and information from agents that are doing ad hoc Pro Days.”

But, Mayock asks, how much of that can you trust? “So I think more of the question marks begin to surface the further you get into this draft.”

For the bigger-name prospects, because the COVID-19 restrictions have prevented teams from giving prospects the normal medical examinations, Mayock said the major question is “the medical status of a lot of these guys.”

Contact Vincent Bonsignore at vbonsignore@reviewjournal.com. Follow @VinnyBonsignore onTwitter.