I felt this title was beyond perfect because when the NFL Draft comes around, you really do have to expect the unexpected whether it’s guy that you thought were locks to be a projected top-ten pick will fall all the way to the 20s or later in the first round and we can also see veterans be traded. 11 years ago this April, the Patriots shocked us all when they decided to acquire Randy Moss and give Tom Brady an elite weapon and I think it’s safe to say that panned out really well. On the opening night of the draft, the Oakland Raiders were in the news and they added another weapon to their offense: They acquired Martavis Bryant from the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Last October during the season, a report came out that Martavis wanted out of Pittsburgh because he was tired of being the third option and I could understand his frustrations because the two guys he was playing with were considered to be the two best at their positions in Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell. When you play with guys of that caliber, you’ll never really be the guy. I even compared this situation to Kyrie Irving and wanting to get out of the shadows of LeBron James. Martavis is an extremely talented football player. He’s an exceptional route runner whether he’s going inside by running a drag route, he’s running deep down the field or he’s in the red zone, he’s a fluid route runner and he plays smaller than he appears. This is a 6’5 receiver with the shiftiness of a slot guy in space. He’s above average when it comes to making people miss in the open field. When you need him to get down the field and for a deep route, he does that and he is also a nice threat in the red zone. He’s such a big, strong and fast receiver and when he has his head in the game, he can be an extremely productive wide receiver.
He joins a Raiders offense that includes Derek Carr, Amari Cooper and Jordy Nelson who the Raiders acquired during free agency. If everything pans out, this could be a really prolific passing attack for Jon Gruden.
