Blinksportsnews247Pete Carroll and John Spytek are not willing to put off for tomorrow what they can do together today. That encapsulates the energy the Raiders duo has brought into Indianapolis, Indiana, for the NFL Scouting Combine.
Carroll doesn’t want to waste any time in his venture of turning around the fortunes of his new team. The Las Vegas Raiders are going into the 2025 NFL Draft with the No. 6 overall pick after finishing 4-13. But anything that happened before Carroll took over the operation doesn’t concern him.
He’s solely focused on what’s ahead. “Some really important aspects of the team have to come together, but they’re going to have to compete their butt off to make this thing move forward,” Carroll told local media. “It didn’t work out quite right last year, I could give a rat’s ass about what happened last year. I don’t care about that one bit.
What happened [in] those games, those matchups – they mean nothing. It’s what [we] are going to do with the next step we take.” “I’m trying to take this far as we can as soon as I possibly can,” he added. “Why would we do anything but that? I’m not looking for a grace period or something cushy [like], ‘Give me a few years to get things going.’ I don’t think that way at all.” While Carroll has attended the Combine countless times before, he keeps the enthusiasm and spirit of a coach going into his first.
It’s also important to him to have a coaching and scouting staff around him to attack the event with the same mantra. “We’re evaluating players at the same time, learning about each other and how we see guys and how we interview them and all of that, putting together this class,” he said. “Remember, we’re also in the midst of free agency with our own players and the players that we might have a chance to attract. So, all of that is just keeping us all going. It’s nonstop. It’s been great.
Spytek continues to take a holistic look at the roster and prepare for free agency in a few weeks.
However, before any new players are signed, the priority is keeping quality players in the building. His first re-signing off the offseason came Monday, bringing back safety Isaiah Pola-Mao who started 14 games in 2024. “We don’t want to let any good players walk out of our building, especially young players,” Spytek said during his media availability Tuesday.
“And Isaiah was a guy that given an opportunity last year when Marcus [Epps] got hurt, really stepped up and played well. I think you’ve got to give a lot of respect to a young kid that’s undrafted and has a chance to get thrust in the starting lineup, and next thing you know, he’s playing at a good level. And we noticed it in Tampa, and talking to the coaches, PG [Patrick Graham] that was here, thought he was critical.” Spytek clarified that adding players to the roster will be done strategically, putting players at each position that will compete against one another for spots.
This will especially be considered this week while evaluating college prospects, with the desire of drafting players they feel are right for the team regardless of who’s already on the roster. “[W]e’re not going to pass on elite talent because we maybe have a couple guys at that spot,” Spytek said, “but we’re certainly not going to just force picks because we need a player, whether the public thinks that or we think that. I’ve been a part of doing that before. … My experience has told me you do that – you just draft for need, you will draft guys way too early and you’ll regret it and you’ll watch other guys that you may have wished you took in a different position have great careers, and you’ll be like, ‘If I just would have done that.’ “So to me, it’s more about team building.
What’s best for the Raiders? How can we make this work? It’s not about collecting talent, and it’s not about just filling a roster out either.”
Blinksportsnews247
