The Las Vegas Raiders have been hard at work building their roster up this offseason, and they added a surefire weapon on offense in the 2024 NFL Draft when they selected Brock Bowers with the 13th overall pick of the draft. According to Terrion Arnold, though, he was very close to hearing his name get called by the Raiders at that spot instead of Bowers.

Arnold ended up getting selected 24th overall by the Detroit Lions, but he recently claimed that Las Vegas let him know that they flipped a coin to decide between him and Bowers, and that the coin ended up telling them to choose Bowers. The Raiders front office quickly heard about this, and it led to assistant general manager Champ Kelly coming out with some interesting comments on Arnold’s claim.

“I can’t confirm that at all. Terrion is a good player. I’m excited to watch his career and watch him play. But we drafted Brock. And we’re excited to get him here. And I don’t think anyone else in our whole draft room felt any other way.” – Champ Kelly, On3

Champ Kelly not divulging Raiders draft plans

A lot of fans were wondering what the Raiders were going to do with their first-round pick, and they ended up using it to draft the highly talented tight end in Bowers. It’s clear that Bowers has a ton of potential, but considering all of the other areas of need on their roster, it was a somewhat surprising decision from Las Vegas’ front office, especially after they drafted Michael Mayer in the second round of the 2023 draft.

One of the options that would have made more sense was Arnold. Their starting cornerback duo of Nate Hobbs and Jack Jones doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, and he inadvertently ended up falling all the way down to the Lions after the Raiders passed on him. But conversely, Bowers fell further down the board than expected due to the insane run on quarterbacks in the first round.

That was a run the Raiders were expected to be a part of, but instead, they stood pat the 13th overall pick, and missed out on the top six passers in the draft. Arnold alleges that left the team with a coin flip between him and Bowers, but Kelly interestingly didn’t confirm or deny that with these comments. Could that actually have been what the front office did to settle on picking Bowers?

Given all the research and analytics that go into making these picks, it almost seems too simple to be true, but maybe that was what the front office settled on. Regardless, Bowers is a Raider, and Arnold is a Lion, and he will probably enjoy playing for Detroit more than Las Vegas given how competitive the rest of their roster is. As for Bowers, he’s going to have to hope someone can step up under center for the Raiders, or else it could be a long rookie campaign for him.