Oakland Raiders 2010 Draft: The Top Ten Size/Speed Players Al Davis Will Reach For

Every year it happens. Al Davis is a numbers guy, and he drafts players with impressive size/speed combinations. His theory is that you can teach a great athlete to be a football player, but you can’t each a football player to be an athlete. We saw it last year with Darrius Heyward Bey and Louis Murphy, and in previous years with players like Darren McFadden, Fabian Washington, Stanford Routt, Thomas Howard, and Chaz Schilens. I could go on. Sometimes Al will pick a player almost out of nowhere (Nnamdi Asomugha - 2003) who turns out to be an all pro. Other times they turn out not so well (Bob Buczkowski – 1986) Sometimes it works then, and sometimes it doesn’t. So Al Davis might say “I would rather be right than consistent”, but the reality is that he is consistent, but not always right. When the combine comes around, all the sports journalists look at the players with the best 40 yard dash times, and automatically pencil them in for Oakland come draft day. Most of the time they aren’t wrong. Ironically, the only athlete Al Davis didn’t reach for recently as Chris Johnson who was selected by Tennessee, and became an all pro........ If you run an outstanding 40 time for your position, the Raiders will look at you. If you run in the 4.3’s, you are very much on their radar. If you run sub 4.3, you have a very good chance of landing in Oakland. So looking forward to this year, the Raiders have some pretty big holes to fill on a roster that in some areas is loaded with talent, wheras in others there are gaping holes. Here then is my look at the players you can be sure feature somewhere on Al Davis’s big board on draft day Begin Slideshow

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